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Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

bbc.com

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Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#221

Post by OroPla »

mrob wrote: post #114
Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living very close to busy highways is known to generate poor air quality. I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms. I bought a couple reasonably priced HEPA purifiers and I change the filters on schedule. Replacement HEPA filters are very cheap. Also watch out for things that we do indoors that can generate bad air quality. I had a friend who bought a VOC meter and noticed very…

HEPA filters are counterproductive in standard air purifiers. Air purifiers pump their cleaned air directly into the dirty air of the room. It doesn't matter if that cleaned air is extremely clean, because it's immediately mixed with dirty air. What actually matters is how much clean air you produce: the "clean air delivery rate" (CADR). The more effective the filter the more it restricts airflow. If a filter is only…

If you only use 99% it means there are small particles you can't catch. Being faster is meaningless if you can never clean the air.

Air purifiers are designed to run 24/7 and all they do is catch particles. Eventually all the particles will be caught. The one I got also detects if there is a lot of particles and will spin faster accordingly.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#222

Post by vincnetas »

pasc1878 wrote: post #183
mk89 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why we keep on building right next to highways which are some of the worst things for our health. You don't need to live in the countryside for that. Just stay roughly 1km away from them and the situation is significantly better. There is evidence of a lot of ugly diseases caused by this, without even mentioning the constant 40+ dB background noise.

In London that is difficult – there is not a lot of space. Plus the idea of having everything within a 15 minute walk including access to public transport.

highway != public transport

And pollution from bus or tram is much easier to control. Looking at you petrolheads who like to "Rolling coal"

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#223

Post by Neil44 »

Symbiote wrote: post #89
bilekas wrote: post #21

> strongest evidence yet that local clean air zones could help reduce some of the harm caused by pollution during childhood. It's incredible this is even in debate. It's one of those intuitive things well known since the reduction of coal burning and smog during the industrial revolution in London?

The right (Conservative) and far right (Reform) parties both say they will abolish low-emission zones and other measures to reduce pointing traffic. They made it into a culture war topic.

Fact check, the conservatives want to block the expansion into outer London. Reform wants to end them all.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#224

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Neil44 wrote: post #149
satvikpendem wrote: post #4

Using scientists being "stunned" should take the same amount of relevance as someone being "slammed" in article titles.

I'm obviously supportive of less pollution etc etc but looking at the actual graph results I wouldn't describe them as 'stunning', the needle barely moved. But of course, they have to have something to make headlines after spending so many million on the study and who knows how many billion on ulez. I'm not one of these anti ulez people I think it's good. But you can imagine the pressure to spin tepid results into he…

The entities with a ton of money tied up in the ULEZ are, perhaps with a layer or two of indirection, are likely the same ones funding this research, or if not this research then the guy across the hall in the same lab.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#225

Post by flir »

Gigachad wrote: post #152
enquirewithin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve often wondered about this. Does the area immediately above where the gas stove was have an exhaust fan that vents to atmosphere? I would have assumed a properly specced exhaust fan would capture and remove combustion products from a gas stove?

I’ve never once been in a property that had an exhaust fan sufficient. I’ve had the exhaust on full blast and the spike on the air quality sensor on another floor of the house is rapid and massive. I suspect a sufficient ventilation would require something more like a lab fume hood that can pull a negative pressure on the area around the stove. And from what I have seen, a good number of exhaust fans are straight up…

> And from what I have seen, a good number of exhaust fans are straight up fake and just ventilate back in to the room rather than ducted outside.

Culinary Cargo Cult.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#226

Post by OroPla »

patrickk wrote: post #112
Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living very close to busy highways is known to generate poor air quality. I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms. I bought a couple reasonably priced HEPA purifiers and I change the filters on schedule. Replacement HEPA filters are very cheap. Also watch out for things that we do indoors that can generate bad air quality. I had a friend who bought a VOC meter and noticed very…

If you’re so inclined, you can build your own air purifier with laser cut panels or 3d printed panels and use a cheap ikea air filter and standard PC fans. All the parts are readily available, and user repairable. If you pair if with an Apollo AIR-1 you can have home assistant ramp up and down the fans with a PC fan controller based on live readings of PM2.5 in your home. I did this with the help of Claude code. http…

Looks like a cool project, but the 99.97% HEPA filters are the expensive part. Building yourself only makes sense if you want to choose your own aesthetics or enjoy doing it.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#227

Post by dzhiurgis »

nathancahill wrote: post #13
ecshafer wrote: post #3

Anecdata I was living very close to a busy highway, and my young daughter was wheazing when she had a cold, we had to give her medicine via a nebulizer. When we moved out to the country more, far away from any major roads, these issues all disappeared within a couple months.

Doctors used to prescribe a "change of air" in the 18-19th centuries. Maybe they still should.

Since Eastern Europe is relatively poor and sensitive to energy prices a lot of households invested into insulation, new windows, etc. Last 20 years there was also a huge boom for heat recovery ventilation. Such a simple and inexpensive device that provides so much. Should be first item in every household to invest into.

Funny part is that locals here are absolutely scared of any sign of draft or direct aircon. All while it's what actually saves their health lol.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#228

Post by dzhiurgis »

marliechiller wrote: post #142
theplumber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember I’ve read somewhere that jogging is actually net harmful for health in the city due the air pollution.

Shame you cant remember the source. Ive long since wondered if its actually more deleterious for my health to cycle to work in London due to air quality. I came to the conclusion that youre damned if you do and damned if you dont in the end, as in London at least, many of the tube lines have particulates higher than is considered safe

Add to the mix - indoor gyms are perfect for spreading respiratory viruses.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#229

Post by AlecSchueler »

agos wrote: post #169
lompad wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Asthma looks to be mostly caused by gas stoves. Do you have a source for that? Because as far as I can see, asthma isn't _that_ less common in countries where gas stoves are barely used, such as germany. Still has like 60-70% of the asthma cases the US has. There's also a ton of other pollutants the US hasn't yet forbidden, but the EU has, which could also explain a lot of the difference in rates. Don't get me wrong…

Germany has a ton of NO2 for other reasons, for example diesel motors

> N02 is a very hazardous air pollutant which doesn’t get a ton of attention. The main sources are combustion engines and gas stoves. Asthma looks to be mostly caused by gas stoves

That makes sense but the unverified claim is that gas stoves are the main contributors to asthma.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#230

Post by dzhiurgis »

8by3 wrote: post #207

Seems electric cars produce the same or sometimes more non combustion particulates than ICE cars, eg. bits of road and tire that are flung into the air while driving. So EVs are better than ICE for air quality, but fewer cars even better.

But london tube have order of magnitude of dust pollution and buses damage roads (aka pollute) 30,000 (yes 30k) times more due to weight.
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