In the world, more than 3 million people die due to the effects of air pollution every year. But new high-tech solutions may soon help us to breathe in more fresh air.
For 3 days in March 2016, 10 pigeons flew around in London with backpacks. These backpacks monitor the air pollution in London, and then let the people in the city know the air quality via tweets. In almost all cases, the results weren’t so good. The air pollution in the capital of the UK is getting worse every year, often rising as much as 3 times the European Union’s legal limit.
Speaking of cities which has bad air pollution, below is a video which shows just how bad the smog can be.
These 10 pigeons were one of the latest in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to control and monitor air pollution. According to the World Health Organization, it is the world’s biggest environmental risk for human health, and the air pollution continues to rise at a very alarming rate.
“Only 1 in 10 people live in a city that complies with the WHO air quality guidelines” (BBC, 2017).
In London, 1 in 12 deaths is related to the bad air quality, and in New Delhi, the air pollution shortens the life of its residents by 6.3 years.
The reason why air pollution is so bad for us is because of these tiny things called particulate matter. Particulate matter (PM) are tiny particle which are emitted in vehicle exhaust fumes. Although they are tiny, they are the biggest air-borne killer. One of the finest particle in this family is PM2.5 (it is named like this because its diameter is only 2.5 micrometers). PM2.5 is the deadliest thing in a smog, since it can penetrate lung tissue and enter the blood stream, which can damage arteries and cause cardiovascular disease. The next deadliest component which can be found in smog is nitrogen dioxide, which inflames the lungs and making people prone to infection. In the UK, it is responsible for 23,500 deaths annually.
There are solutions however.
One of the solutions is a tower which, in a way, is a giant air purifier. It sucks in air-borne particles where they receive a positive charge. They then get captured by a negatively-charged dust-removal plate, and then clean air is emitted the other end.
The Hospital Manuel Gea Gonzalez in southern Mexico City is coated in a catalyst that reduces nitrogen dioxide to a harmless salt (Credit: Elegant Embellishments)
Also, there is a material called biochar, which can take carbon out of the sky, convert it into a material, and use that material for constructing something. In fact, it actually removes more carbon dioxide than what a tree trunk can do.
The reason why this is important for everyone around the globe is because air pollution is a problem that all countries face. In the future, the air pollution looks to be worse, which would also rise the temperature in the world. If the air pollution gets worse, then more people would die because of it. So these solutions are very important for us.
Citations
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170112-how-the-worlds-biggest-cities-are-fighting-smog
http://www.freeworldmaps.net/asia/china/location.gif
http://www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/united-kingdom/location.gif
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