Over the past 10 years, air pollution levels have been rising. It’s well known that cities and towns are some of the worst affected areas; with places like Mumbai, London and Hong Kong topping lists for dangerous levels of toxicity in the air. Concern for environment and increasing risks to human health and prompted scientists to create technology to combat pollution on a larger scale.
Why Is It Important?
Air quality doesn’t just harm the planet, but it’s also linked to a growing number of deaths. In fact, earlier this year, a child’s death became the first that was directly attributed to air pollution in London, UK. She lived in a “hotspot” for extreme levels of pollution, which caused her health to deteriorate. Though this is the first case to hold pollution wholly accountable, a whopping 6 million deaths have been linked to pollution worldwide since 2016.
Additionally, global warming activists are also worried about the emissions being released into the atmosphere. It’s common knowledge that carbon dioxide is the biggest contributor to warming the Earth, but sulphur dioxide is also a concern. It’s the primary cause of acid rain, and it’s a component of smog.
Where Is Safe?
Given the dangerous levels of air pollution outside, it’s natural to assume that indoors would be safer. However, this simply isn’t the truth. Air pollution can affect you wherever you are; as we continue to see it seep into homes and workplaces. It’s attributed to smoke, mould, and pollen making it harmful to indoor spaces. Although cities are often the places with the worst air quality, suburban areas are still not completely free from such pollution.
Because poor air quality is such as widespread problem, it can have an impact on people’s work life. This can cause employees to become sluggish, de-motivated and less productive. Alarmingly, it can also contribute to a weakened immune system, so they’re more inclined to take sick days. Business owners need to be constantly looking for new ways to motivate their staff to discourage absences. They should welcome the new progressions in technology.
The Solutions
Scientists and environmentalists have been working together to try and tackle to problem of poor air quality. This, combined with the pledges from government and actions from compliant countries, should have a positive impact moving forward. So, what are the solutions being proposed?
- Due to the fact large corporations and factories are marginally responsible for their addition to global warming, it makes sense to create something that can filter the air quality. Industrial ventilation systems have been rolled out across many industrial sites. The aim is to provide cleaner air for the workers, while also monitoring the emission levels from the building.
- On a smaller scale, companies such as Dyson and Vax have been working on cleaning the air in people’s homes. Air purification devices are increasingly popular accessories in the household, and it’s likely that over the coming years, more and more people will have these small state-of-the-art machines in their home to filter the air.
- Across many cities, new eco-friendly bins have been introduced. These aren’t necessarily recycling bins, as they can also be used to general waste. However, it’s the way they are managed that makes them environmentally friendly. When the bin gets full, it sends an alert to the company that they need to be emptied. This discourages mess from the city centre.
Changing Attitudes
In the long run, changing attitudes combined with the developments in technology are guaranteed to have a positive impact on the environment. Actions must be taken from the government, ministers and also the public to work together and combat pollution, all the while utilizing the new technology along the way.