Air Pollution

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Air quality on Australia’s roads matters. On any given day (when we’re not in lockdown) people meet, commute, exercise, shop and walk with children near busy streets. But to date, air quality monitoring at roadsides has been <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/4/217">inadequate</a>.
I and my colleagues wanted to change that. Using materials purchased from electronics and hardware stores for around A$150, we built our own air quality monitors.
Our <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0231778">newly published research</a> reveals how our devices detected particulate pollution at busy intersections at levels ten times worse than background levels measured at official air monitoring stations.
Our open-source <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0231778.s001&amp;type=supplementary">design</a> means citizen scientists can make their own devices to measure air quality, and make the data publicly available.
This would provide more valuable data about city traffic pollution, giving people the information they need to protect their health.
Particulate matter: a tiny killer
Everyone is exposed to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/08958378.2011.593587">airborne particulate matter</a> emitted by industry, transport and natural sources such as bushfires and dust storms.
Particulate matter from traffic is a mixture of toxic compounds, both solid and liquid. It’s a well-known health hazard, particularly for children, the elderly, pedestrians, cyclists and people working on or near roads.
Particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, referred to as PM2.5, is particularly harmful. To put this in context, a human hair is about <a href="http://npi.gov.au/resource/particulate-matter-pm10-and-pm25">100 micrometres</a> in width.
When inhaled, these fine particles can damage <a href="https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201404-0613ED">heart and brain function, circulation</a>, <a href="https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201410-1875OC">breathing</a> and the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S100107421732764">immune and endocrine systems</a>. They have also been linked to <a href="http://npi.gov.au/resource/particulate-matter-pm10-and-pm25">cancer</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935115300207">low birth weight</a> in newborns.
Do-it-yourself air monitoring
Highly reliable equipment to measure air quality has <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/5677343">traditionally been expensive</a>, and is not deployed widely.
Official air quality monitoring <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/1/189/htm">usually</a> takes place open spaces or parks, to provide an averaged, background reading of pollution across a wide area. The monitoring stations are not typically placed at pollution sources, such as power stations or roads.
However there is growing <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231011002299">evidence</a> that people travelling outdoors near busy city roads are exposed to high levels of traffic emissions.
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331238/original/file-20200429-110761-ygbw42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt="">
 An air quality monitor built by the researchers and painted purple, attached to a light pole in Liverpool, Sydney. Author supplied
Air quality monitors can be bought off the shelf at low cost, but their readings are not always reliable.
So I and other researchers at the University of Wollongong’s SMART Infrastructure Facility made our own monitors. They essentially consist of a sensor, weatherproof housing, a controller and a fan. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and assembly skills can make and install one. The monitor connects to the internet (we used <a href="https://www.thethingsnetwork.org">The Things Network</a>) and the software required to run it and collect the data is available for free <a href="http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3627394">here</a>.
The weatherproof housing cost about A$16 to make. It consists of PVC plumbing parts, a few screws and small pieces of fibreglass insect screen, which can be bought at any hardware store.
Sensors can be bought from electronics retailers for little as A$30, but many are not tested, calibrated or overseen by experts and can be <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0231778">inaccurate</a>. We tested three, and chose the Novasense SDS011, which we bought for A$32.
A controller is needed to run the monitor and send data to the internet. We bought ours from an online retailer for under A$60. A fan, needed to circulate air through the housing, was bought from Jaycar for A$14.
Accounting for wiring and a few other parts, our monitors cost under A$150 each to make - ten times cheaper than mid-grade commercial detectors – and produce reasonably accurate results.
What we found
Following community meetings, we deployed our sensors at nine key locations and intersections around Liverpool in Western Sydney, a region which has traditionally suffered from poor air quality.
Our monitors have been in place since March 2018, placed close to pedestrian height on structures such as light poles, shade awnings or walls.
They have detected roadside measurements of PM2.5 at values of up to 280 micrograms per cubic metre in morning peak traffic. This is more than <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0231778">ten times</a> the readings at the nearest official monitoring station. The severity of the pollution and how long it lasts depends on how bad the traffic is.
These findings are <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/4/217">comparable</a> to other studies of busy roads.
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331244/original/file-20200429-110761-wu324r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="">
 Pollution from vehicle emissions can have serious health consequences. Dean Lewins/AAP
Breathing easier
Our experience of roadside air quality can be improved in a number of ways.
Obviously, exposure to air pollution is worst at peak traffic times, so plan your travel to avoid these times, if possible.
Pollution levels <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/4/217">drop quickly</a> with distance from busy roads and can be at near background levels just one block away. So try to detour along quieter back streets or through parks.
Barriers, such as dense roadside vegetation, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231017303151?via%3Dihub">can shield pedestrians</a> from pollution. Children in prams are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019345593">more exposed</a> to traffic pollution than adults, as they are closer to the level of vehicle exhaust pipes. Pram covers can <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019345593">reduce infants’ exposure</a> by up to 39%.
Of course, the best way to reduce air pollution from traffic is to have fewer vehicles on our roads, and cleaner fuel and engines.
In the meantime, we hope our low-cost technology will prompt citizen scientists to develop their own sensors, producing the data we need to breathe easy in city streets.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hugh-forehead-1047887">Hugh Forehead</a>, Research Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-wollongong-711">University of Wollongong</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/air-quality-near-busy-australian-roads-up-to-10-times-worse-than-official-figures-137227">original article</a>.
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j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

Air quality near busy Australian roads up to 10 times worse than official figures

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Sydney and its suburbs have been enveloped in haze over the past few days. The haze is a mixture of bushfire smoke and dust blown in from western New South Wales. As particles move from rural locations, like Gospers Mountain in this case, they make grey cities.
In Australia, dust blurs the distinction between the bush and the city. Elsewhere it blurs the farmlands with the concrete jungles, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesias-huge-fires-and-toxic-haze-will-cause-health-problems-for-years-to-come-124556" target="_blank">nation-states with regions</a>.
<a href="http://societyandspace.org/2019/03/17/spiral/" target="_blank">Spiralling dust</a> challenges our usual ways of thinking about bush, farm, industry, rich city and poor city divides. It travels across geographical and socioeconomic boundaries. There is no easy way to stop it.
Dust’s composition and unfettered mobility <a href="https://www.stateofglobalair.org/health/sources" target="_blank">make it a global epidemic</a>. Once airborne, dust spares no one in its path. It sits in the lungs of cities and citizens. It is stubbornly difficult to eradicate.
The harms of dust
The dust brings with it old and new anxieties about life, death and disease. Air pollution caused <a href="https://www.stateofglobalair.org/health" target="_blank">2.4 million deaths in India and China</a> in 2017.
Last week, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/delhi-is-engulfed-by-toxic-pollution-why-isnt-anyone-wearing-masks/2019/11/14/bb4adfe4-0643-11ea-9118-25d6bd37dfb1_story?outputType=amp" target="_blank">Delhi</a> and <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/haze-singapore-unhealthy-range-november-nea-12088930" target="_blank">Singapore</a> reported serious air pollution from agricultural fires and industrial emissions. <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/stubble-burning-dips-in-north-india-satellite-data-show-1619716-2019-11-16" target="_blank">Particles from crop burning</a> in the neighbouring states of Haryana and the Punjab and <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/finance-commission-likely-to-reject-12-billion-package-to-help-utilities-cut-pollution/articleshow/72136898.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">power plants</a> took Delhi’s air quality index to <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/stubble-burning-dips-in-north-india-satellite-data-show-1619716-2019-11-16" target="_blank">dangerously high levels</a>.
Dust is also generated from within cities, particularly from construction sites. Regulatory bodies seek to <a href="https://societyandspace.org/2019/07/11/breaking-the-ground/" target="_blank">contain these sites within enclosures</a>. Where the regulatory frameworks are weak, environmental bodies impose fines.
<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/construction-dust-open-waste-dumping-top-polluting-activities/articleshow/67445201.cms" target="_blank">Construction dust adds significantly to air pollution</a> in Indian cities. In Kolkata, <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/building-materials-add-to-air-pollution-in-calcutta/cid/1699147" target="_blank">construction materials are stored on sidewalks and roads</a>. Even with fines, it is nearly impossible to make barriers that can contain dust.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302846/original/file-20191121-479-i4bqwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302846/original/file-20191121-479-i4bqwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Workers spray water as a dust control measure at a construction site in Parramatta, Sydney. Malini Sur, Author provided.
Haze can be seen, but the threats of dust are often invisible. Dust plumes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/27/dust-storms-diseases-sydney" target="_blank">can carry bacteria and viruses</a>. Dust can <a href="https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/bb145a804f951ad6ab5bab0ba45b835a/Port+Augusta+Dust+and+your+health+information+2017.FINAL.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&amp;CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-bb145a804f951ad6ab5bab0ba45b835a-mN5ShjC" target="_blank">cause a variety of respiratory and circulatory diseases</a>.
In Singapore, dust mites have been claimed to be the <a href="https://www.asianscientist.com/2014/02/health/dust-mites-main-allergies-singapore-2014/" target="_blank">main cause</a> of respiratory allergies.
The colours of dust
Dust gathers colour. In Australia, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/natural-wonders/massive-red-dust-storm-sweeps-over-new-south-wales/news-story/1eb304c90ccfa8842f2bb553bb65de70" target="_blank">dust storms are typically red</a>.
The so-called “Asian dust storms” are yellow. <a href="https://asiasociety.org/korea/hwang-sa-yellow-dust" target="_blank">Originating in the deserts of Northern China and Mongolia</a>, strong winds carry yellow dust all the way to the Korean Peninsula via the jet stream.
These storms have increased in China, and the levels of industrial pollutants in the dust often have too. Yellow dust also <a href="https://asiasociety.org/korea/hwang-sa-yellow-dust" target="_blank">carries viruses, fungi, bacteria and even heavy metals</a>, none of which is good for respiratory health.
Earlier this year, Thailand was affected by yellow dust. Authorities in Bangkok used <a href="https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1611010/bangkok-fires-water-cannon-into-the-air-to-fight-pollution" target="_blank">water cannons</a> and even <a href="https://www.thaipbsworld.com/cloud-seeding-results-in-brief-rain-over-parts-of-bangkok/" target="_blank">cloud seeding</a> in attempts to limit the dust’s effects.
Singapore is periodically <a href="https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/air-quality-eastern-singapore-enters-unhealthy-range-haze-due-particulate-matter" target="_blank">enveloped in grey</a> dust.
<h2>The history of dust</h2>
Today, talk of smoke, haze and smog is common to the world’s cities. Once dust settles, we become habituated to it. Dust resides in landscapes and humans. And dust tells stories about historical wrongs.
Australia has a long history of death from exposure to asbestos dust. Dust <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/when-dust-ends-in-death-how-asbestos-devastated-wittenoom-ng-b88930946z" target="_blank">wiped out the town of Wittenoom</a> in Western Australia.
The <a href="https://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/history/" target="_blank">first documented asbestos death</a> was recorded in the UK in 1906. Although asbestos has been known since then to be deadly, it continues to be a stubborn presence around the world. Worldwide consumption of asbestos is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131021061734/http:/www.silverdell.plc.uk/images/downloads/Silverdell_History_of_Asbestos.pdf" target="_blank">nearly as high as it has ever been</a>.
In the early 1930s, overcultivation of wheat on the Great Plains of the US created the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Dust-Bowl" target="_blank">Dust Bowl</a>. Overploughing, poor land management and severe drought left the topsoil exposed. Spring winds picked up this loose soil, resulting in “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Dust-Bowl" target="_blank">black blizzards</a>”.
The dust affected <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl" target="_blank">huge swathes of the country, including the cities of Chicago and New York</a>. It deepened the economic crisis of the Great Depression and caused mass migration.
Haze from forest fires has been a regular occurrence in Singapore <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/attachments/2015/10/02/haze_covers_whole_island_oct_28_1977.pdf" target="_blank">since at least the 1970s</a>. These have originated in the south of Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. In the 1990s, transboundary pollution became the subject of two regional summits, leading to the <a href="http://haze.asean.org/?wpfb_dl=32" target="_blank">ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution</a> in 2002.
In 2014, Singapore passed the <a href="https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/THPA2014" target="_blank">Transnational Haze Pollution Act</a>. This law enables regulators to prosecute companies and individuals, even <a href="https://www.wri.org/news/2014/08/statement-singapore%E2%80%99s-new-haze-pollution-law-%E2%80%9C-new-way-doing-business%E2%80%9D" target="_blank">beyond the nation-state’s borders</a>, that cause air pollution.
<h2>A pervasive challenge for cities</h2>
Our bodies create dust and dust enters our bodies. <a href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/house-dust-mite" target="_blank">Species emerge that live off dust</a>.
What makes dust harder to reckon with in our imaginations is that its particles are almost invisible and its source is generally unknown. It is an amalgam of an uncountable number of sources, often from many different countries and producers.
Whether resulting from geological events, deforestation, construction or some indeterminate combination of each, our inability to pinpoint dust’s source makes climate accountability extremely difficult.
A key focus for cities now and in the future is to think about how we manage dust, the plans and practices we put in place to limit dust creation and contain its spread.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127515/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;">
Malini Sur, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University.
Eric Kerr, Lecturer, National University of Singapore.
This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-sydney-and-other-cities-have-in-common-dust-127515" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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