Problem

Air pollution causes preventable health outcomes, impairs cognitive function, and may even increase risk of mortality. The OECD estimated “that a 1ug/m3 (10% more than average) increase in PM2.5 concentration causes a 0.8% reduction in real GDP that same year.” BIPOC communities suffer disproportionately from air pollution exposure. BIPOC individuals tend to live closer to grandfathered factories or work in manufacturing jobs that expose them to greater levels of pollutants. The paradox of air pollution is that the act of eliminating it largely pays for itself. These costs are not just social – they show up in healthcare costs too. One study estimated that air pollution caused $760 million worth of healthcare costs to be spent on preventable preterm births in 2010.

Key Terms

Air Pollution: a mixture of solid particles and gases in the air that can result from car emissions, chemicals from factories, dust, pollen, mold spores, and ozone.
PM 2.5: fine inhalable particles, with diameters that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller. PM 2.5 levels are used as indicators for how polluted cities are.

Solutions

1. Air Pollution Monitoring

Collecting better data on air pollution could enable citizen science, where BIPOC communities can easily collect and present local air quality data to government agencies, insurance companies, and other stakeholders to create positive systemic change.

Existing Solutions

Purple Air has created an affordable, residential air quality monitoring system that measures PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10.
Local air monitoring solutions such as Aclima connect data points to the cloud to help inform users with real time data on how to reduce pollution and emissions.

What needs to be done?

<aside> 🏭 Identifying Pollution Sources: Improved and democratized air quality sensors (i.e. “pocket sensors”) could feed into a smart pollutant tracking system that accurately detects pollutant abundance and the source of unwanted emissions. Ultimately, helping cities make strategic decisions around pollution reduction, such as how many cars are allowed on the road or factory pollution restrictions.

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2. Indoor Air Quality

Small particulate matter, toxins, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can all have detrimental effects on indoor air quality.

Existing Solutions

Metal Mark “decomposes pollutants” by making 3D nanostructured materials that lead to the highly efficient catalytic destruction of air pollutants — turning toxic particles into benign ones.