From the moment Mpho Putsoenyane's daughter Hlompho was born in Zamdela, a South African township beside the smokestacks and gas flares of Sasol's oldest coal-to-liquid refinery, the baby struggled to breathe.

Last year, when she was four months old, she turned purple and started gasping. Her parents rushed the baby to hospital, where medics only just revived her heart with a defibrillator, Putsoenyane recalls.

"We were terrified," she told Reuters at her brick bungalow, pausing to wipe away tears. "We thought she was going to die."

Sasolburg, as the petrochemical giant's refinery town north of Zamdela is called, has been identified by government officials as one of several areas of South Africa in urgent need of cutting harmful air pollution from burning coal.

It also encapsulates a dilemma facing many coal-dependent nations: how to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants without hurting strategic industries or killing low-skilled jobs.

Coal keeps 90 000 people in work and produces 80% of South Africa's electricity and a third of its liquid fuel, a carbon-intensive and highly polluting process that Sasol pioneered during white minority rule.

When Reuters visited the town 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Johannesburg last month, it was cloaked in smog and pervaded by the stink of sulphur. Putsoenyane was among four families that Reuters spoke to with breathing problems they blamed on the air.

When Hlompho's parents took her to a lung specialist in the nearest big city, Bloemfontein, the girl immediately improved.

As soon as they got home, though, she was rasping again. The doctor blamed air pollution and said she wouldn't recover unless they moved, Putsoenyane said.

"But we can't move," Putsoenyane said. Her husband Joseph works for a firm providing services to Sasol. It has paid for their school fees, TV, stereo and microwave, among other trappings of modern life.

"So I took her to my father's house in (neighbouring) Lesotho. Ever since, she's been fine," Putsoenyane said.

"But I only see her every six months."

HEALTH PROBLEMS IN THE COAL BELT
A recently published government-sponsored study examined 700 school children aged 9 to 14 who had been exposed to high levels of pollution in the Highveld coal belt west of Johannesburg, where Sasol has a separate plant and where several coal-fired power stations also operate.

The study found "airway inflammation, abnormal lung function, and asthma symptoms".

To attempt to address the problem, the government in 2010 set tougher, legally-binding minimum emissions standards for pollutants like sulphur dioxide.

"The Highveld and Sasolburg are among South Africa's most polluted regions ... to address this, the government declared these as priority areas to improve the air people breathe," environment department spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa said.

But Sasol and other big air polluters have repeatedly - and successfully - sought temporary exemptions from pollution rules.

The company lobbied, in private letters to the environment department in October 2022 and March last year, for "less stringent emissions standards for older facilities" because of the cost of trying to retrofit pollution filters.

A Sasol spokesperson referred Reuters to an August 2023 statement saying that "various (clean air) technologies ... were found to be practically infeasible to install in Sasol's existing plants".

The spokesperson did not respond to a further request for comment on the specific case of Hlompho and her family.

The private letters, seen by Reuters, were obtained by shareholder activist group Just Share under freedom of information laws.

The national air quality officer initially rejected Sasol's plea, government documents show. But in April, then environment minister Barbara Creecy overruled the decision to grant Sasol its exemption.

"While Sasol ... (has) been granted temporary reprieve from meeting certain emission limits, they must still implement pollution control measures" to meet license terms, Mbelengwa said.