PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

[mcguire]

For anyone else who doesn't immediately get the acronym,

"Fine particles (PM2.5) are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, and can only be seen with an electron microscope. Fine particles are produced from all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes."

https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.particle

[toufka]

AKA, nanoparticles; 2.5 micrometers = 2500 nanometers.

[rabboRubble]

Try comparing air quality in [0] Beijing and [1] Delhi. Most days you will find Indian air pollution far worse than the air pollution in Beijing.

[0] http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/ [1] http://aqicn.org/city/india/new-delhi/us-embassy/

Not letting China off the hook, but India is hardly ever mentioned and their problems are worse. India has been unable to implement effective policies and instead are looking toward gimmicky solutions like installing air filters at street intersections.

More needs to be done in India, China~

[seanmcdirmid]

In the Asia-expat community, I think most of us have accurate rankings in our heads. Right now, there is a 999 reading for Delhi on aqicn, but this could be PM 10 (and I check, it is, still PM2.5 is bad at 400+). India is definitely behind China as a low-middle income country, but China is middle-high income, it isn't in the same class as India.

I think we just expected more from China especially when companies were trying to convince us that we didn't need hardship pay to work in China while it is still provided in India (the US embassy/consulates had to reinstate hardship pay in China after 2010, international recruitment at other companies is way down). China was supposed to lack the negative features of a least developed country, but that wasn't really the case when air pollution was considered; it really does effect your lifestyle (you can't go for nightly walks anymore, you are a slave to aqi readings, "don't forget to wear your face mask honey!" as my wife would say).

BTW, if I was going to work in India, I would choose Bangalore. The air seemed OK enough compared to Delhi and Mumbai.

[kurthr]

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-world/

[hellofunk]

While China is somewhat the poster child for modern air pollution, do not overlook that PM2.5 and PM10 exposure is also very bad in many parts of Europe, SE Asia, and large American cities. The Netherlands occasionally experiences a haze that is quite visible and smokey-smelling, in fact tomorrow will be one of the worst days of the year for PM exposure in NW Europe:

http://www.temis.nl/aqi/aqi_nl.html

[anexprogrammer]

I wonder how much of that stems from the efforts to promote diesels over petrol for CO2 reasons.

[frik]

Is there a good website that provides such air pollution current & forecasts for Europe or better world wide?

[tptacek]

This 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.

[seanmcdirmid]

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.

[piotrjurkiewicz]

Most of PM and other harmful smog components, like SOx, NOx and organic compounds, came from:

1. Transportation emissions, especially diesel engines.

2. Individual heating of buildings (using coal, oil or biomass).

This is because exhaust fumes are mostly not being filtered in these cases.

Coal power plants have advanced filter systems, which can reduce pollutants by more than 99% in some cases.

http://i.imgur.com/dsNgDvn.png

http://web.archive.org/web/20150611212052/http://www.babcock...

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40789-014-0001-x

Moreover, in power plants, coal burns in a much more optimal conditions, what results in less pollutants being generated.

https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FoS_BurningQue...

> According to Environment Canada, coal-fired power plants in Alberta in 2011 emitted only 0.4% of PM2.5 of human-made emissions (excluding wildfires).

But somehow most of the bashing by media, green/left politicians and 'ecological' organizations is targeted at coal power plants, instead of real pollution sources.

And ignorants enforce this lies, by repeating that "coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants".

[stephenbez]

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).

[adsfqwop]

It's hard to put a straight number on it, other than that "it will most likely reduce the negative effects".

A standardized HEPA filter removes 99.97% of particles down to PM0.3. How much it cleans the air in the room in the end depends on many factors, but in a small room and a decent filter you can expect a significant reduction in pollution.

So yes, if you want less pollution, a HEPA filter will deliver it in a theoretical range of zero to 99.97% purification, depending on the variable factors of room size, air circulation, purifier air flow and so forth.

A properly sized purifier will circulate all air in a room several times per hour, so in practice you can expect a good cleanup of particulates (perhaps around 80%) in a fairly short period of time (less than an hour).

[trentmb]

Get some houseplants too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study

[clumsysmurf]

Also, some of these particles enter the brain directly through the olfactory nerve.

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/39/10797.abstract

easier to read:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/05/toxic-ai...

[pizza]

Crikey, that is a particularly sensible realization that is also quite alarming.

[ourmandave]

I work <10' away from the dept laser printer all day. Talk of nano particles makes me worry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toner#Health_risks

[myth_drannon]

Is there a way to measure it with a simple and cheap device?

[GrumpyYoungMan]

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.

[pvlbdn]

Beijing based startup is making "smart air quality monitor":

http://originstech.com

[myth_drannon]

Found a good overview of currently available monitors:

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/09/home-indoor-air-quality...

[luckman212]

I second this question- please post some links if anyone knows of an effective way to detect and do long-term monitoring of these in-home or at a workplace.

[reasonattlm]

The challenge in linking air pollution to age-related disease and mortality risk lies in the confounding correlation with wealth. There are plausible physical mechanisms involving, for example, increased levels of inflammation resulting from high levels of particulate air pollution, but regions with lower levels of air pollution tend to have much wealthier populations, and it is well known that wealth correlates with lower mortality and greater life expectancy, both for individuals and across societies as a whole.

[pyk]

Agreed wealth is a confound, however there are several studies that control for socioeconomic status, air conditioning and smoking. These studies still observe a correlation between PM2.5 and increased all-cause mortality primarily driven by increased lung cancer and heart disease mortality. A couple studies linked below control for a few of these confounds, but there are several others too [1,2].

The causal reason is likely the fine particulate matter getting "stuck" in lung tissue and our bodies unable to remove the particles causing accumulative issues on lung function [3].

[1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa0805646

[2] http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/109/1/71.full

[3] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10473289.2006.104...

[mikeash]

Is clean air really correlated with wealth in China? The wealthy Chinese are generally in big cities which is where the terrible pollution is found.

[tudorw]

another 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...

[kristianov]

For reference, it is one in a thousand (Chinese population is ~1.4B).

[Retric]

That's 1:1,000 per year so a much higher percentage of overall deaths. On the order of ~7% of all deaths in china assuming 1/1000 * ~70 year life expectancy.

[tonetheman]

All I could think of was some node package manager is killing people in China?...

[k_sh]

Hah. I thought this was an article about PM2

[XCSme]

Tbh, I thought this was about https://github.com/Unitech/pm2 . I was pretty confused.

[eatbitseveryday]

"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...