Respro® Masks FAQ: How to fit a Respro® mask?

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

For more FAQ,  see Respro® Mask FAQ

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Air pollution ‘kills 47,000 a year’

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Fumes, chemicals and air pollution are resulting in tens of thousands of deaths in Germany a year, according to figures released on Sunday.

Air pollution caused 47,000 premature deaths in 2013, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) said in a study published over the weekend.

Nitrogen dioxide was one of the widest-spread, dangerous substances, as well as fine particulate dust which can cause breathing complications or even lung cancer, the study said.

“According to the calculations by the Federal Environment Agency there are on average 47,000 premature deaths caused by too high levels of fine particulate matter every year – resulting from acute respiratory diseases, cardiopulmonary disorders or lung cancer,” said Thomas Holzmann, UBA vice-president in a statement accompanying the release.

Dangerous pollutants came from wood burning, traffic fumes and power stations, the UBA said. It called for stricter air pollution controls from the European Union.

via Air pollution ‘kills 47,000 a year’ – The Local.

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5 Things To Know about Colorado’s air pollution plan

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

New air quality rules for Colorado’s booming oil and gas industry go under review Wednesday when health officials start taking public testimony on a set of upgrades meant to reduce air pollution from drilling.

Parts of Colorado haven’t meet federal ozone standards for four years. The state’s Air Quality Control Commission last year proposed tougher air quality checks for energy producers including the nation’s first statewide rule on methane emissions.

The rules also require a new monitoring system of infrared cameras at drilling sites to speed detection of leaks.

5 Things to Know about the rules and what they might mean for Colorado:

WHERE THEY CAME FROM

Colorado’s oil and gas industry is regulated by a special commission that critics have long accused of being too friendly to drillers. But air quality is regulated by an agency in the Health Department, which proposed the regulations in November.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper touted the rules as a grand compromise among environmentalists, health officials and the oil and gas industry.

The state’s largest oil and gas companies — Anadarko, Encana and Noble Energy — signed on to the proposal. So did the Environmental Defense Fund.

WHAT THE CHANGES ARE

The rules are intended to force energy producers to cut down on “fugitive emissions,” those air pollutants that can leak from drilling sites and storage sites.

The rules include a first-in-the-nation requirement for leak detection from tanks and pipelines using infrared cameras that can spot problems that otherwise may not be discovered. Another first is the statewide methane emissions standard for oil and gas production.

The rules would also force drillers to use flare devices to burn off emissions from facilities not connected to pipelines.

The state has put the tab for industry compliance to the stricter air rules at about $40 million a year. The Colorado Petroleum Association puts the cost at about $100 million.

HOW THEY’LL HELP

The Commission predicts the rules would trim more than a third of Colorado’s air pollution from volatile organic compounds, which contribute to ozone. That’s about 92,000 tons a year.

An announcement touting the rules last year said they’d be the equivalent of taking every car off the roads for a year.

The methane limits are being promoted as especially significant. Though drillers don’t emit as much methane as carbon, methane traps more heat.

Hickenlooper said last year that the air rules “represent a significant step forward in addressing a wider range of emissions that before now have not been directly regulated.”

WHAT’S NOT IN THE RULES

The proposal doesn’t address some of the biggest points of contention about Colorado’s oil and gas industry.

They don’t address how far oil and gas wells must be from homes, schools or businesses.

The rules also don’t increase in-person inspections of drilling sites, nor do they raise fines for operators that break regulations.

“The compromise certainly isn’t everything that all parties wanted,” said Dan Grossman of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office.

But Grossman and the large energy companies that agreed to the rules say they’re a good first step.

The Colorado Petroleum Association, which represents those companies but also smaller operators, is expected to oppose parts of the new regulations, which the CPA says could prove too burdensome for some.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW

The public hearings begin Wednesday, and the Air Quality Control Commission has rented space in Aurora because they say their regular hearing room isn’t big enough.

Interested parties who can’t drive to Aurora will be allowed to give telephone testimony, though they have to register by Monday.

The Commission could approve the rules soon after the public testimony ends, though they could also keep working in response to what they hear.

via 5 Things To Know about Colo.’s air pollution plan – Wire Business News – The Sacramento Bee.

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60mph speed limit proposed for stretch of M3 motorway

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

The Highways Agency is already consulting, on a reduced speed limit on a 32-mile section of the M1.

It has now launched a consultation on a similar move on a 2.8-mile section of the M3 between junctions 3 and 4.

The Highways Agency says the new restriction would apply from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.

It would be in place between Junction 3 at Lightwater and Junction 4 near Farnborough on what the agency describes as “this major motorway link between London and the Port of Southampton and the South West of England”.

‘Landmark announcement’

The proposal has been prompted by concerns about higher levels of pollution at peak times following the conversion of the hard shoulder into a traffic-carrying lane – something which is happening at other parts of the motorway network as part of efforts to cut congestion.

The agency says that the extra lanes will cut journey times during peak times, so even with the lower speed limit, journeys will be quicker.

It said it also expects to be able to remove the 60mph limit by 2019, as cars become less polluting.

Motoring group the RAC warned it could pave the way for a reduction from the national standard 70mph to 60mph at other parts of the network where hard-shoulder running is to be allowed.

RAC technical director David Bizley said: “Given the landmark announcement in early January about a reduced speed limit of 60mph on a 32-mile stretch of the M1 in order to protect air quality in the area, this should really not come as a surprise.

“It does, however, come hot on the heels of the first announcement and invites the question as to whether any of the eight other planned all-lane running, smart motorway schemes which the government have heavily invested in will also need to have reduced speed limits put in place to protect air quality?

“News that the restriction should lead to higher average traffic speeds on this stretch is something of a consolation for commuters, but others who travel outside of peak times will no doubt wonder why they can’t drive at 70mph on a clear motorway.”

Motorists and other interested parties have until 11 April to comment on the M3 proposals.

The M1 consultation ends on 3 March.

via BBC News – 60mph speed limit proposed for stretch of M3 motorway.

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Air pollution may lead to brain cancer

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

A team of researchers is set to conduct a study to determine if several potentially toxic compounds that exist in polluted air are capable of entering the brain from the bloodstream and causing brain cancer.

The research by scientists at the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute and Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai will be done in laboratory mice and will focus on three – naphthalene, butadiene and isoprene – that often are associated with polluted air.

Cedars-Sinai researchers and others have used high-tech systems to detect genes and proteins involved in the development of brain cancers.

They have studied molecular changes and interactions considered “brain tumor pathways” that lead from defective gene activity to cancer generation in the brain.

The researchers also have identified certain genes that appear to support cancer stem cells. Like normal stem cells, cancer stem cells have the ability to self-renew and generate new cells, but instead of producing healthy cells, they create cancer cells.

The air pollution study is intended to determine whether up to 12 months of ongoing exposure to air pollution causes molecular changes in the brain that are consistent with the development of brain tumor pathways; if toxins associated with air pollution can cross the brain’s natural defense mechanism – the blood-brain barrier – and enter the brains of animals; and whether this exposure activates genes and proteins that support brain cancer stem cells.

In the new study, researchers will examine tissue exposed to pollutants at three months, six months and 12 months to determine if there is a change with longer exposure compared to shorter.

via Air pollution may lead to brain cancer | Latest News & Updates at DNAIndia.com.

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Air pollution in Beijing has made the city ‘almost uninhabitable for human beings’

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital ‘barely suitable’ for living, according to an official report, as the world’s second-largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth.

The research released by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences this week, ranked Beijing second worst in terms of living environment among 40 major cities around the world.

It was only saved from last place by Moscow which was came last mainly due to its harsh natural environment – long winters and extreme cold.

Air pollution in Beijing has made the city the ‘almost uninhabitable for human beings’ according to a new environmental study

‘Beijing’s severe pollution is much worse than the average level … and the environment is far from meeting the [safety] standards,’ the study concludes, according to state-owned China News Service which was reported by the South China Morning Post.

Pollution in the Chinese capital is ‘close to extreme’ and makes the city of 20 million ‘barely suitable’ for living, according to the Shanghai academy’s findings

Today China’s Cabinet has announced that 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) has been set aside this year to reward cities and regions that make significant progress in controlling air pollution, highlighting how the issue has become a priority for the leadership.

The fund will be set up to reward rather than offer subsidies for the prevention and control of air pollution in the key areas, according to a statement released after a Wednesday meeting of the State Council led by Premier Li Keqiang. It said controlling pollutants such as particulate matter in the air should be a key task.

The statement said the consumption of coal should be controlled and also called for increased efforts to promote high-quality gasoline for vehicles, energy saving in construction and the use of environmentally friendly boilers.

The government is eager to bring about a visible improvement in China’s bad air, which has caused discontent among its citizens and tarnished the country’s image abroad.

While heavily polluting industries have emissions standards, they are not necessarily enforced, and local governments often still favor pollution-intensive projects that can generate growth, which is what their performance is judged on.

Separately Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that Beijing’s city government said it would shut down 300 polluting factories this year and eventually phase out some industries to improve the city’s air, citing a document detailing the capital’s action plan to 2017 to clean up its air.

Energy and pollution-intensive projects such as steel and cement are not to be approved on principle, it said.

Xinhua said a list of industrial projects to be suspended or stopped would be published by the end of April.

via Air pollution in Beijing has made the city ‘almost uninhabitable for human beings’ | Mail Online.

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Air Pollution: It’s Complicated, But It’s Still About Environmental Justice 

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Many recent studies have shown that air pollution levels and income levels are linked. Poorer communities suffer from bad air more than wealthy communities. A recent study by UCLA researchers revealed some complications in this correlation, but found that air pollution is still about environmental justice.

The researchers drove a zero-emissions vehicle through four residential Los Angeles neighborhoods to collect data on real-time concentrations of toxic ultrafine particles. Mar Vista’s North Westdale, a middle-class neighborhood downwind of the Santa Monica Airport, scored worst. Surprisingly, the freeway-surrounded Boyle Heights neighborhood scored slightly better for these pollutants, followed closely by downtown Los Angeles. Less surprisingly, the affluent West Los Angeles neighborhood scored significantly better than the other three.

Freshly emitted ultrafine air pollutants are known to cause asthma, heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, low birth weight and other health complications. Focusing on these types of pollutants instead of smog and ozone–which have been the subject of significant prior research–was critical to the study, which was published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. Suzanne Paulson, a professor in UCLA’s Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability directed the research with Arthur Winer, a professor in UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, and Wonsik Choi, a postgraduate researcher who led the fieldwork and drove the vehicle that collected the air samples.

The researchers found that while there were no significant differences in more traditional air pollutants like larger “PM2.5” particles between neighborhoods, readings of the tiniest airborne particles, the concentration of ultrafine particles (less than 0.1 microns in diameter) varied widely between neighborhoods on summer afternoons.

“The North Westdale neighborhood is heavily impacted by aircraft activities at Santa Monica Airport,” said Suzanne Paulson. “It has exceptionally high levels of ultrafine particles when aircraft are active, possibly among the highest concentrations of any neighborhood in the Los Angeles area.”

Boyle Heights, a less well-off neighborhood near downtown LA, is similarly affected by roadway pollution. “It is nearly surrounded by freeways and crisscrossed by major arterial roads,” Paulson said. “These streets carry a large number of high-emitting older vehicles, and its neighborhoods are characterized by short blocks with abundant stop signs, causing frequent emission spikes from accelerating of vehicles.”

But vehicle emissions are not the only source of ultrafine particles found in these neighborhoods. “In Boyle Heights, and to a lesser degree downtown, there are additional ultrafine particles that are not freshly released from vehicles but instead form in sunlight-driven smog processes and are ultimately the result of pollution blown in from upwind areas to the west,” Paulson said.

Although their findings indicate that all kinds of neighborhoods may face dangerous levels of air pollution, the researchers found that air quality is still an environmental justice issue, with poorer neighborhoods more likely to face greater pollution. “Despite substantial improvements in regional air quality, cleaner air remains a highly desirable amenity in Southern California,” said Arthur Winer. West Los Angeles, the most affluent of the four neighborhoods, still experienced the lowest concentrations of ultrafine particulate matter. Furthermore, it experienced a significant decrease in ultrafine particles in the last few years, which also can be explained in terms of its wealth.

“The decrease in ultrafine particles between 2008 and 2011 in the West Los Angeles area was dramatic,” Wonsik Choi said. “Affluent West Los Angeles experiences rapid turnover of the vehicle fleet, resulting in a higher proportion of newer vehicles with cleaner engines and better fuel efficiency.”

Higher property prices in neighborhoods with lower concentrations of noxious particulate matter is one way that residents implicitly signal that they value the quality of their air. Consequently, the lack of purchasing power for the poor to live in neighborhoods with necessarily clean air continues to be a concern of environmental justice.

via Air Pollution: It’s Complicated, But It’s Still About Environmental Justice | UCLA Inst. of the Environment and Sustainability.

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Air pollution increases risk for hypertension in pregnant women

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Breathing the air outside their homes may be just as toxic to pregnant women — if not more so — as breathing in cigarette smoke, increasing a mom-to-be’s risk of developing deadly complications such as preeclampsia, according to findings from a new University of Florida study.

UF researchers compared birth data with Environmental Protection Agency estimates of air pollution, finding that heavy exposure to four air pollutants led to a significantly increased risk for developing a high blood pressure disorder during pregnancy. The research was published in the January issue of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

The pollutants include two specific types of fine and coarse particulate matter, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. According to the EPA, particulate matter includes acids, dust, metals and soil particles. These inhalable particles are released from industries and forest fires and can form when gases react with each other in the air. Sulfur dioxide is emitted from power plants and industries. Most carbon monoxide is produced by car exhaust.

“Fetal development is very sensitive to environmental factors,” said Dr. Xiaohui Xu, an assistant professor of epidemiology in the colleges of Public Health and Health Professions and Medicine. “That is why we wanted to do this research. Hypertension (high blood pressure), in particular, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, causing a lot of problems for the mother and fetus, including preterm delivery.”

Hypertensive disorders such as gestational hypertension, preeclampsia and the deadly condition it leads to, eclampsia, affect about 10 percent of pregnancies. Despite the serious risks to mother and baby, little is known about what specifically causes these conditions to develop in pregnant women, the researchers say.

To gain a better understanding of how environmental factors may play a role in increasing the risk of developing hypertension during pregnancy, the researchers examined data from women who gave birth in Jacksonville, Fla., between 2004 and 2005 and environmental data from their communities. The sample included more than 22,000 pregnant women.

The researchers did not include mothers with chronic hypertension, those who had previously given birth prematurely or those whose babies were born with other complications in the sample. They then gauged how much pollution the women were exposed to throughout their pregnancies using data the EPA gathered daily to measure the levels of several pollutants.

Among the sample of women, 4.7 percent developed a hypertensive disorder during pregnancy. Exposure to air pollutants throughout the first two trimesters of pregnancy increased women’s risk of developing one of these conditions, Xu said. They determined this after controlling for other factors that could affect a woman’s risk for developing hypertension, such as socioeconomic status, exposure to co-pollutants and smoking during pregnancy. But they could not determine conclusively whether exposure early in the pregnancy or late in the pregnancy was more likely to increase a woman’s risk for hypertension.

“It looks like the whole period has impacts for hypertension,” he said.

On the basis of these findings, the researchers say more air pollution control is necessary to prevent dangerous complications in pregnant women and babies. Although more studies are needed, the researchers hypothesize that exposure to air pollution during pregnancy may affect a woman’s normal pattern of blood pressure.

Next, the researchers plan to expand their study throughout the state and also examine other conditions that could be affected by pollution.

“We are trying to look at several outcomes,” Xu said. “We also want to look at preterm delivery and low birth-weight and find out what the effects of breathing contaminated air are on fetal development.”

The research was funded through grant K01ES019177 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

via Air pollution increases risk for hypertension in pregnant women » News » University of Florida.

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