Does anyone know how much the negative health effects of living near a highway can be mitigated by using a plug-in HEPA filter? I'm considering moving to an apartment 200 feet from the 101 (8 lane total highway).
Get some houseplants too.
PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
51–60 of 60 posts
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#52Is there a way to measure it with a simple and cheap device?
It's been a while since I last researched it but the least expensive unit I've saw at the time that was reportedly accurate is Dylos DC1100 monitors for ~$200-$300, depending on the sensitivity and options desired. However, I never got around to purchasing one so I can't vouch for it personally.
I've got a Dylos DC1100 Pro and it seems to work great, however I don't have a solid way of verifying the accuracy of its measurements. Supposedly it's one of the most accurate devices available at that price.
Empirically it works; running a HEPA filter in a closed room for 15 minutes will eliminate almost all particle readings. Cooking bacon in the kitchen will make the meter read 100x higher than normal, etc. I'd recommend buying one if you're interested in monitoring air quality, if anything it will be useful in giving relative quality measurements.
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#53another good reason to find space for more trees in urban developments; http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2013/nrs_2013_nowak_002.p...
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Death rate in China is 7.7 deaths/1,000. So 1/1,000 caused by pollution would be closer to 13% of all deaths.
Wow, China's population must be aging really quickly.
Interestingly they're aging at 1 year per year, which is only a tiny bit slower than the people who live high in mountains who age at 1 year + epsilon (where epsilon is gravitational time dilation) per sea-level-year
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. Do you have any recommendations on what to look for when buying a filter? I was planning on buying a filter labelled True HEPA from a well known company, that uses a fan and not ionization, and being sure to replace the filter as directed. The HEPA standard, ensures PM0.3 are filtered out. But this article ( http://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highw... ) says ultrafine particles (PM0.1) are…
It is pretty difficult to filter out ultra fine particles anyway and some of the best air purifiers can claim to do a lot. Obviously, you will be breathing that stuff every day and unless the air around you is seriously affecting your health, you don't need a high end air purifier. This is my opinion, but unless you have allergies or asthma, most top of the line air filtration systems won't have much of an impact on…
Why no UV? Seems like it couldn't hurt.
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're looking for a global view, I recommend the world-view of the AQICN forecast. You can really see where the hot spots are and how they distribute particulates to other areas. Central China (Chongqing) and Eastern India (Delhi) are particularly bad. Europe really isn't bad (even when it goes over 100... it's not 600-999) and the west coast of the US gets hit by China smog. http://aqicn.org/forecast/model/cams-…
Damn, I didn't realize the Aleutians got hit so badly by Asian pollution.
It's a small world after all.
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#57Tbh, I thought this was about https://github.com/Unitech/pm2 . I was pretty confused.
"PM2.5" is a standard term[1,2], along with "PM10".
[1] https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/amtic/amticpm.html
[2] https://cfpub.epa.gov/airnow/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.part...
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, China's population must be aging really quickly.
Interestingly they're aging at 1 year per year, which is only a tiny bit slower than the people who live high in mountains who age at 1 year + epsilon (where epsilon is gravitational time dilation) per sea-level-year
I was curious how much altitude would affect aging so I did a quick google search. "The atomic clock calculated that for every 12 inches of elevation, 90 billionths of a second are added to a lifetime (79 years)"
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#59This is unsurprising and in large part traceable to China's domestic coal consumption. When people say that coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants ever have, this is what they're talking about.
Nuclear plants don't kill anyone outside of a couple of accidents, so "infinitely more" would even be correct. However, I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners in ways that would cause a huge disaster down the line.
-> I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners
Then hopefully you don't live in the UK, where China is developing new designs for reactors -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/15/china-to-buil...
Re: PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear plants don't kill anyone outside of a couple of accidents, so "infinitely more" would even be correct. However, I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners in ways that would cause a huge disaster down the line.
-> I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners Then hopefully you don't live in the UK, where China is developing new designs for reactors - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/15/china-to-buil...
A chance to prove themselves with adult supervision is better than nothing.