Are you breathing dirty air ?
According to a recent OECD report, outdoor air pollution could cause 6 to 9 million premature deaths a year by 2060 and cost 1% of global GDP, around USD 2.6 trillion annually, as a result of sick days, medical bills and reduced agricultural output, unless action is taken.
A WHO (World Health Organisation ) air quality model dated from september 2016 confirms that 92% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed limits. In 2012 WHO has estimated that 6.5 million deaths (11.6% of all global deaths) were associated with indoor and outdoor air pollution together.
For the WHO regions that have the highest air pollution levels are South East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific regions. Three quarters of the population in high-income and 20% of the low-and-middle countries of the Americas, and less than 20% of the European and Western Pacific high-income countries breathe air that does meet the WHO Air Quality Guideline level of 10 ug/m3 for PM2.5. In addition, people within countries are unevenly exposed to air pollution, depending if they live in a city or in a rural area, or if they live close to a busy road or to polluting industries.
What about Your Air ?
If you live in a main city you can check the daily air pollution level with the Air Quality Index service AQI. Just enter a city name and if you're lucky the service will diplay a collorful Real-time Air Quality chart.
If you are looking for a more friendly App to check the air quality i suggest that you use the Air View service from Blueair compagny (an Air Purifier system vendor).
Air View get its air quality data from the following services; Green Room, Wynd, PM25, AirNow and European Environment Agency. It is relying on Google Street View which is not available everywhere in the world. So no chance to find out what you are breathing around if you live in the middle of nowhere !
What about the indoor pollution mesurement ?
You can buy a good air quality monitor but it will cost you an arm.
You can also try to DIY with a Cheap Sensor. It's a kid game. Have fun !
Last but not least, you can put in your home some landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement.
Yes indeed. A NASA clean air study showed that certain common indoor plants may provide a natural way of removing toxic agents from the air.
#Up-timize your health...
Excellent