Help! Info on air pollution monitoring - citizen-data to kickstart community action

[Cindy Regalado]

Dear All,

A friend of mine whose family lives in a rural community in Poland is deeply concerned about the impacts of air pollution esp. from coal burning in his region. 

He is looking to start his own initiative to collect data about the pollutants in the air and start open discussions in his community about the health impacts and call for action by the local residents and authorities. One of the main issues is the use of coal for indoor heating because it is much cheaper than gas. Some regions in Poland are taking action already and he will likely link to these but in the meantime he's like to gather some citizen-data.

Do any of you:

• Have guidance on groups in Poland, Europe or around the world who are tackling similar issues?
  
• Have made tools or know of techniques to gather air quality data esp. related to coal?
  
• Have knowledge experience with sensors to detect dust particles from coal dust, toxins like benzo(a)pyrene, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide emissions?
  
• Know of groups/organisations working on studying links between air pollution from coal and carcinogenic health impacts?
  

I know it is a lot but any bit of information would help!

A bit of background on his needs:

I would like to put one or a few sensors (depending on their cost and reliability) around my parents' house. Getting polluted air won't be a problem - it's everywhere from autumn to spring. The pollution is caused by people burning relatively dirty coal dust in their own homes for heating. Coal dust used to be burned only in big power plants but some companies managed to make it burn without build-ups of carbon monoxide also in peoples' homes. It's much cheaper than hard coal (which is more pure) or any other heating method. Furthermore, stoves powered with coal dust can heat home for up to about 3 days without any need for adding more coal, which is also a strong incentive for many to invest in such a stove.

A sensor I would like to buy needs to work long enough to generate some data. Maybe up to a year of unproblematic use outdoors (but not exposed to direct rain), in temperatures from +40 to -30 degrees Celsius. It should be easy to handle, so that I can set it up easily around home and get the results.

I think the most important for me is to see whether the air pollution breaches internationally recognized thresholds for safe presence of different substances in the air where the impact of particles on health is evident. The sensor doesn't have to measure a lot of things. Even 2 or 3 important aspects of air quality would be enough to open the discussion which I would like to start later on.

I think factors that would speak to peoples' imagination would be some data that can investigate links to carcinogenic agents or particles that cause miscarriages. Talking about some less emotionally significant problems such as pulmonary diseases or skin ageing would be less impactful.

[Liz Barry]

Hi Cindy,

Copying the air quality list in.

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[Nick Shapiro]

Hi Cindy, 

CC'ing Irma Allen, who is doing environmental humanities phd work on coal dust and toxicity in Poland. Any leads, Irma? 

All best, 

Nick 

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[Liz Barry]

Also copying Dan McQuillan of Science for Change Kosovo

Not sure if these are the best links on the Prishtina work...

recent article in Albanian (i used Google Translate to read): http://kosovotwopointzero.com/hotspotet-e-ndotjes-se-ajrit-ne-prishtine/

About the project: http://www.citizenscienceks.org/ , http://making-sense.eu/youth-science-change-kosovo/

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