Respro® Bulletin Board

Air quality hits severely polluted

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

SHANGHAI’S air reached severely polluted last night, its worst this year, as the city air quality index passed 300.

This followed three days of smog, though forecasters said the arrival of a cold front today with northeasterly winds should disperse pollutants.

Although yesterday was only January 11, it was the eighth polluted day of 2015, and saw the index peaking at 302 — in the highest pollution bracket — at 8pm.

The Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center issued an air pollution alert. Children, the elderly and people with heart and lung disease were told to stay inside, and those working outside advised to take measures to protect themselves from hazardous particles.

The index fluctuated through the day, staying above 200 at heavily polluted throughout the morning, before dropping below 200 at 1pm.

However, after falling to 168 at 4pm, it climbed again, passing 300, the designation of severe pollution at 8pm.

Levels of the main pollutant PM2.5 — tiny particles especially harmful as they can get deep into the respiratory system — also occurred in two waves.

They reached 240 micrograms per cubic meter at 2am, dipped to 220 at 6am and rose to 240 again at 10am.

Then they fell to 120 micrograms at 4pm but returned to some 250 micrograms at 8pm — 10 times the World Health Organization safe limit.

Local environmental authorities said this series of polluted days was caused by the pollutants from northwestern China and still conditions in Shanghai.

But there should be respite today.

Under high pressure, temperatures will range from 5 to 9 degrees Celsius with a sun and cloud, said the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

Tomorrow and Wednesday wet weather is forecast, before dry though still cloudy conditions on Thursday. But on Friday, drizzle is forecast.

From Tuesday and Friday, temperatures will range from 6 to 12 degrees.

The only days this year when clean air was recorded were January 1, 7 and 8.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, China | Tagged Air Pollution, China, Shanghai | Leave a comment

Real-time Air Quality Index visual map

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

You don’t always notice air pollution when you walk out the door in the morning. Sure, sometimes there’s smog in the sky to tip you off that it’s an extra-polluted day but that’s not always the case. So, how do you know if it’s safe to take a jog or play outside with the kids? Just take a look at this interactive air pollution map.

It gathers information from sources all over the world to give you up-to-date reports on air pollution in your area. The interactive map is full of little boxes marking each reporting device. The boxes include numbers and color ratings so you can quickly tell what pollution levels are like. The lower the number the better!

To view the map, click here.

via Real-time Air Quality Index visual map | Komando.com.

Posted in Africa, Air Quality, Asia, Australia & Oceania, China, Europe, India, Japan, Latin America, London, Middle East, UK, USA & Canada, World News | Tagged Air Pollution | Leave a comment

Respro® Masks FAQ: How can I ensure the mask is clean after using it for a while?

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The mask and filter should be treated like an undergarment and regularly cleaned.

To ensure good hygiene measures we suggest that you place the filter and valves sub-assembly in a pan of freshly boiled water (remove pan from heat source before putting filter and valves in) and let it cool down.

Remove filter and valve unit and allow to stand until dry.

This process will remove facial oils that may build up over a period of continuous use and ensure that it is hygienically clean. The procedure will also remove some of the particulates and organic vapour that have been filtered within the filter or tissue salt build-up from exhalation through the valves.

If the mask cover requires washing this should be done by carefully removing the filter and valve assembly and then washing the outer casing in warm soapy water and then left to dry naturally (not forced by means of heaters and driers).

For more Frequently Asked Questions go to respro.com

Posted in Air Quality | Tagged Respro® Masks FAQ | 2 Comments

Hyderabad Shivers in Cold, Air Pollution Rises

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Winter traps pollutants, pollution levels double in cold weather

With temperatures dropping at alarming levels, children and the aged are facing the brunt of air pollution. It is a well known fact that the air pollution levels in the city crossed the permissible limits of the standard 60 micrograms/cubic meter long time back but what is troubling denizens is that health problems increase during winter as pollutants get trapped in cold weather leading to rise in air pollution.

P Veeranna, scientific officer of TSPCB, said, “When the temperatures are high, the pollution density lessens which allows the pollutants to rise. In winter, it is the other way round and pollutants remain at the respirable level.” The total suspended particulate matter in the city is close to 200 as against the standard 100 micro grams/cubic meter. The ammonia content has crossed standard permissible limits at various places in the city. Paradise Circle, Punjagutta, Charminar, Kukatpally and Jeedimetla have the highest PM 10 content.

With 700 new vehicles added to the roads every day, the pollution levels are only going to rise, avers Suguna, a social scientist. The most vulnerable groups who get affected by the rise in pollution are police personnel, traders, businessman and urchins who stay put at various crossroads in the city.

via Hyderabad Shivers in Cold, Air Pollution Rises – The Hans India.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, India | Tagged Air Pollution, Charminar, Hyderabad, India, Jeedimetla, Kukatpally, Paradise Circle, Punjagutta | Leave a comment

Air pollution in Scotland ‘creating public health crisis’

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution in Scotland’s towns and cities is creating a public health crisis, according to environmental campaigners.

The claim by Friends of the Earth Scotland came after they analysed official data for two toxic pollutants.

The group said the latest figures showed pollution levels were continuing to break Scottish and European limits.

But ministers defended their record, saying they were working hard, along with councils, to improve air quality.

Friends of the Earth Scotland examined two key pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter – tiny particles which are pumped into the air by diesel vehicles.

It found that air pollution had worsened in several areas over the last year.

High levels of NO2 are linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.

Those sites where nitrogen dioxide levels had worsened included St John’s Road and Queensferry Road in Edinburgh, Dundee’s Whitehall Street, Falkirk’s West Bridge Street and Rutherglen’s Main Street.

Last April, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) said air pollution may have been responsible for 2,000 deaths in Scotland in a single year.

Low Emission StrategyEmilia Hanna, air pollution campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “Yet again, Scotland’s streets are shown to have dangerous levels of toxic pollution which are breaking legal limits that were due to be met in 2010.

“Pollution levels in our urban areas are showing little sign of improvement with some key streets even more polluted than in 2013.

“Air pollution is responsible for more than 2,000 deaths in Scotland each year and costs the NHS here up to £2bn annually.

“The time has come for our polluted air to be treated as the public health crisis it really is.”

She added: “The Scottish government is starting to show signs of action but it is painfully slow.

“A new Low Emission Strategy was promised by the end of 2014 but has yet to appear.

“The Low Emission Strategy is the crucial blueprint which should spell out when people in Scotland will finally be able to breathe clean air.

“If the Scottish government gets it right, then its Low Emission Strategy will save thousands of lives every year.”

‘Significant reductions’A Scottish government spokesman said: “The Scottish government, working in partnership with Scotland’s 32 local authorities, continues to make progress in improving our air quality.

“Data shows that significant reductions in air pollutants have been achieved since 1990 and further decreases are predicted in the future, given our knowledge of the likely impacts of planned investment.

“Although there has been excellent progress, we recognise that there is more to be done to deliver further benefits for human and environmental health where areas of poorer air quality remain.”

He added: “Following work with a wide range of partners and stakeholders, the Scottish government will launch, later this month, a consultation on a Low Emission Strategy.

“This will set out the contribution that reduced air pollution can make to delivering sustainable economic growth and enhancing the quality of life for communities across Scotland, with a focus on progress in Scottish towns and cities over the coming years.”

via BBC News – Air pollution in Scotland ‘creating public health crisis’.

Posted in Air Quality, Europe, UK | Tagged Air Pollution, Dundee, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Scotland | Leave a comment

Air pollution: The big smoke

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

VISITING Oxford Street, a road teeming with tatty shops and overcrowded with people, is plainly a trial. Less plainly, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a noxious gas, have been found to be around three times higher there than the legal limit. In 2013 the annual mean concentration of NO2 on the street was one of the highest levels found anywhere in Europe.

British air is far cleaner than it was a few decades ago. Fewer people use coal-burning stoves; old industrial plants have been decommissioned. But since 2009 levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, coarse or fine particles that are linked to lung cancer and asthma, have fallen more slowly. The exact number of deaths caused by dirty air is unknown. But in 2010 a government advisory group estimated that removing man-made fine particulate matter from the atmosphere would increase life expectancy for those born in 2008 by an average of six months.

Much of the slowdown is the result of fumes from diesel cars, which were championed by successive governments because they use less fuel and thus produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars. In 2001 only 14% of all cars ran on diesel; by 2013 the proportion had increased to 35%. (Greener “hybrid” and electric cars have increased ninefold since 2006, but account for just 0.5% of the entire fleet.) Second-hand cars are particularly noxious, but even newer ones have not been as clean as hoped. Many cars that belched out few pollutants in tests produced more when on the roads.

Government dithering has not helped. Part of the problem is that several departments are responsible for air pollution. This means nobody has taken a lead on it, complains Joan Walley, a Labour MP who chairs an environmental committee that has released a series of damning reports. And few politicians are keen to bash drivers. Talking to Britons about car ownership is “like talking to an American about hand guns”, quips one air-pollution scientist.

Some improvements have been made. In 2008 a “low-emission zone” was created in London, which targets large vans and coaches. A smaller “ultra low-emission zone” has been proposed for 2020, which would charge all vehicles that are not of a certain standard £12.50 ($18.80) a day. European Commission fines for breaching limits may encourage cities to do more. But other countries are more ambitious: 60 such zones exist in Germany, targeting private cars as well as vans. In December Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, announced that she wanted to ban diesel cars by 2020. Cities in Denmark and the Netherlands do more to boost cycling.

When a thick “pea souper” smog enveloped London in 1952, causing the deaths of around 4,000 people in one week, the government was compelled to push through legislation to clean the air. Perhaps the largest problem now is that, with rare exceptions such as a Saharan dust smog that covered the capital in April 2014, this new pollution is invisible. But policy-makers should not lose sight of it.

via Air pollution: The big smoke | The Economist.

Posted in Europe, London, UK | Tagged Air Pollution, diesel exhaust fumes, London, Low Emission Zone (LEZ), Nitrogen Dioxide NO2, Oxford Street, UK, Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) | Leave a comment

Delhi’s polluted air may force Obama to stay indoors

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Amid reports that the US may curb President Barack Obama’s early morning schedule during his visit to Delhi later this month, air pollution monitoring agencies said the levels of ‘PM2.5’ or fine, respirable particles that get lodged in the lungs are likely to be in the range of moderate to high in the period while he’s here.

Air quality, because of the high pollution in the city, is routinely rated by the US embassy pollution monitor as “poor” — in other words, unhealthy. It’s in that context there is speculation that the US authorities here could seek to curtail Obama’s “outdoor activities” during his visit.

However, what makes this difficult is that Obama is chief guest at the Republic Day parade which is held in the open and in the morning when pollution levels are usually high.

It’s possible that Obama will be seated in a sealed bulletproof enclosure which will keep out the polluted air. When contacted, US embassy sources dismissed all speculation about Obama’s outdoor activities being curtailed.

According to data with Delhi Pollution Control Committee, the PM2.5 level for the past three years – 2012, 2013, 2014 – during January 25 to 27 (the period when Obama will be here) was between 130 to 170 microgram per cubic metre, which is at least five times the WHO standard, eight times the US Environment Protection Agency (USEPA) standard and twice the Indian safe standard.

The PM2.5 levels early in the morning when the R-Day parade is held is likely to be very high. In 2013, on the Republic Day between 6 am to 10 am, PM 2.5 values ranged between 234 to 160 g/m3. So, the levels could peak to 15 times the US safe standard of 15 g/m3.

This winter, the US embassy’s monitoring station in Chanakyapuri has been recording several days with “hazardous” air quality because of severe smog. The embassy provides an AQI in the city with real time PM2.5 values and a corresponding health advisory.

“It is too early for the SAFAR model to predict the air quality on January 26, but based on the statistical analysis of past four year of data and considering the growth in emissions and weather conditions, it is estimated that value of PM2.5 on that day is likely to be hover between moderate to poor, between 90 to 110 g/m3, which is better than now,” said Gufran Beig, chief project scientist of System of Air Quality, Weather Forecasting and Research.

via Delhi’s polluted air may force Obama to stay indoors – The Times of India.

Posted in Air Quality, Asia, India | Tagged Air Pollution, Delhi, PM2.5, World Heath Organization (WHO) | Leave a comment

Air pollution can cause harm to DNA, UBC study finds

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust fumes can result in fundamental changes to parts of a person’s DNA, according to a new B.C. study – a finding that has implications for long-term exposure to air pollution, but also methods of reversing the damage.

For the study, published in this month’s Particle and Fibre Toxicology, researchers from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health put volunteers in a small room with diluted and aged exhaust fumes comparable to the air quality along a Beijing highway, or a busy B.C. port.

They found that in just two hours, the exposure affected the chemical “coating” attached to many parts of a person’s DNA – triggering a process called methylation that can silence or dampen a gene, preventing it from producing a protein.

Two hours of exposure would not significantly harm a person’s health, but the study provides a glimpse at how longer-term exposure might affect people living in Beijing, or miners regularly subject to diesel exhaust, for example.

Chris Carlsten, the study’s senior author and associate professor of medicine and chair in occupational and environmental lung disease at UBC, said the study’s results may help scientists find ways of managing the air pollution that comes with population growth and densifying urban environments.

“Let me be clear: The most important thing we can do is reduce air pollution,” Dr. Carlsten said in an interview on Wednesday. “However, because we know that we can’t simply remove air pollution instantaneously … in the mean time, would like to have some way to moderate the impact.”

He said the fact that DNA changes happen so quickly suggests scientists could find ways to prevent or reverse the impacts of air pollution.

Those measures could potentially take the form of anti-oxidants, or other pharmacologic or natural supplements, Dr. Carlsten said. The researchers will be looking at that as part of their next set of studies.

Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist and B.C.’s lone Green MLA, said the study should serve as a reminder of the alternatives to driving gas-fuelled cars.

“Why would we not want to power our vehicles with things other than fossil fuels?” he said. “Vancouver is a jurisdiction like Victoria, where it is perfect for electric vehicles. This is yet another example of how to avoid the [adverse] health affects associated with the combustion of these fossil fuels.”

via Air pollution can cause harm to DNA, UBC study finds – The Globe and Mail.