Category: air pollution

Wood Burning Patterns!

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

I live in an area where wood burning is an unfortunate “cozy” habit for the people around me. So, I decided to see if patterns appear after monitoring the ambient air quality for 30 days in order to identify if there is any window that will allow me to open the windows and get some fresh & clean air. For the sake of simplicity, I will use only PM2.5 values.

I don’t mind if I have to wake up at 3:00 AM in order to allow some outdoor air to come inside and dilute some VOC and CO2 that build up. Indoors, PM2.5 concentrations are kept well under 5μg/m3 because I run the air purifiers 24/7. By the way in a recent, poster the position of the air purifier inside the house plays an important role in how well particles are captured.

Anyway, let’s jump into the data I collected and analyzed.

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Real Life Experiment – Indoor vs Outdoor Air Quality

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

There are countless times that I stretch the importance of monitoring and managing indoor air quality by keeping an eye on the outdoor air quality/conditions.

In this experiment, I want to demonstrate that it is hard to manage indoor air. I want to state that indoor spaces should be subject to 24/7 monitoring and not a periodic inspection.

The graph below demonstrated that indoor AQ gets influenced by outdoor air and on top of that, the polluted air lingers for a longer time indoors unless there is a mitigation plan (aka filtration) in place.

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Ban Wood Smoke – Stickers

Sotirios Papathanasiou2 Comments

In my effort to help clean air communities to raise awareness (I am not only words), I decided to design three simple circular stickers which I will distribute to the communities once the poll is closed and you have selected the best sticker.

Choose one between the three of them and apply to get stickers once the poll is closed. You can apply for the winning sticker via the contact page. Thank you!

Sticker 2
Sticker 3
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Size Matters: Why is important to know the Particle Size Distribution?

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

In a constant effort to educate the community, I highly recommend you to attend my upcoming webinar “Size Matters: Why is important to know the Particle Size Distribution“. The webinar is scheduled for the16th of November, 2022 at 8am EST.

Although it is a business oriented webinar, I will also try to educate in simple terms the attendees on what is PM2.5 and why it falls short as it doesn’t reveal in detail the make up of air pollution.

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The Dark Side of the Wood Stove Industry

Sotirios Papathanasiou11 Comments

You probably have seen “cozy” images of fireplaces or wood stoves with happy people, a blanket around them, and a hot beverage and you may have thought that’s something very appealing, I want that! Well, I would suggest thinking twice before taking that decision and if you have already taken it, maybe it’s time to undo your mistake.

You see, people get sick thanks to these “cozy” elements in houses. It’s very hard to undo the brain wash the wood stove industry has done all of these years but we have to realize that wood burning is neither sustainable nor healthy.

Many claims that biomass is sustainable but this is a myth. A story designed to push people into spending money for status or simple ineffective heating. You see, clean energy (wind, solar, etc) doesn’t require the user to buy fuel, logs, or pellets every season. It is there for us but doesn’t generate constant revenue for the companies.

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Modern Houses & Indoor Air Quality 🏡

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

One will think that the more modern the house, the better the indoor air quality. However, that’s not always the truth as recently I discovered that many houses have inadequate appliances that will create harmful air pollutants and some of them will falsely mitigate contaminants by creating a false sense of remediation.

Example #1

Gas cooktops are a must according to good chefs as the pans are able to heat immediately and you have more control of the heat. That’s not true as the new induction cook tops are able to heat the bottom of the pans as fast without releasing harmful pollutants like Nitrogen dioxide.

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Have you noticed Climate Change?

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I have this simple question. Have you noticed Climate Change?

I believe the summer heat has helped many in the northern hemisphere to notice that something is going on. However, climate change is not only extreme heat but a lot more.

Lots of news are covering the record temperatures that are registered in places never seen before. Lots of articles are talking about the deaths these high temperatures cause. All of them are true, but no one mentions the effects on the environment that supports our food chain and the animals that live on this planet too. Crops and animals, suffer a lot, and they don’t have an air conditioner to cope with the heat or an air purifier to cope with the air pollution.

Ozone (O3)

Ground-level ozone causes more damage to plants and trees than any other air pollutant. Ozone penetrates leaves through stomata (tiny openings present on the epidermis of leaves) during gas exchange. Ozone is a strong oxidant, and it causes several types of symptoms, including chlorosis (yellowing of leaf) and necrosis (the death of the tissue).

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Fireworks are Bad New for your Body

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

Fireworks or pyrotechnics are used heavily to this day in many places around the world to celebrate various events. People have them associated with fan and parties, so they are not very open on hearing that they are bad for our health. Fireworks elevate air levels of particulate matter with several metallic components and gases during their explosion. Studies show that hospital admissions with respiratory issues increase during similar events all around the world.

The color of the fireworks is subject to the metals they mix, and while these metals heat from the explosive materials, they produce various color hues.

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Cars vs People in the USA – Air Quality

Sotirios Papathanasiou1 Comment

Last week was CleanAirDay. I love days like this when a collective effort is made to raise awareness of such an important problem in modern society. Most importantly the new generation of citizens is taught about the importance of excellent air quality and the dangers of air pollution.

For the past few weeks, I have been living in the US near Boston and I am still trying to wrap my head around those super monstrous vehicles people use to commute from one place to another and how towns are designed to force people to drive everywhere.

I am the only person that walks to work or to the grocery store. Literally, I don’t see other people walking here. It’s tremendous!

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Should Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles come with a permanent sticker on the back similar to the Tobacco packaging?

Sotirios PapathanasiouLeave a comment

I think we have come to a point in time where we are well aware of the dangers internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles hide as they emit a tremendous amount of toxic pollutants that have a direct health impact on dwellers, especially in cities.

Nowadays, going to the center of a city by car is unnecessary and very impractical. However, many still insist on taking their huge SUVs even for a trip within a walking distance. Walking distance means going from one point to another no farther than 1,5 km / 1 mile or 15 minutes in time. I don’t think you will go any faster if you take your car because of all the hassle that it involves (parking, getting on board, load stuff, etc).

Schools here in Europe are within walking distances. This is the reason your kid cannot go to a school in a different district. Even then though, parents form huge queue outside of the schools in order to drop off their kids every single morning. No! It’s time to walk!

I believe cars should come with a permanent sticker on the rear side similar to the tobacco packaging in order to make people think and react. The sticker cannot be removed or covered by law. Maybe you will turn off the engine while waiting or not forcing the car to start even when new cars hibernate the engine automatically in traffic lights.

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