During this election fever, I would like to explore what are the legislations that have been put in place to control the emission of pollutants into our atmosphere.

1. Occupier of an industry that requires to burn fuel to operate, needs to maintain its equipment, install and maintain air pollution control equipment.
2. They should also ensure that there are no dark smokes emitted. Once there are dark smoke observed its equipment’s have to be inspected to rectify the dark smoke issue
3.  This regulation applies to smoke from exhaust too. During the quarterly vehicle inspection, the smoke from the exhaust will be checked.
4. The level of impurities in the emission also should not exceed a certain prescribed level.
5. They also have to ensure that the chimney is tall enough to release the air into the atmosphere after going through the control equipment
6. These equipment include:
   1. Scrubbers remove particulates & gases from the industrial equipment emission before they are released into the atmosphere.
   2. Air filters are devices that act as filtration, usually fabric, sintered metal, or ceramic. It collects and removes dry particulates & contaminants such as dust, pollen, microbes, or chemicals from air passing through them.
   3. Cyclones also referred to as cyclone dust collectors which are similar to air filters that separate dry particulate from gaseous emissions. however, instead of using a filter, it uses the centrifugal force to collect & remove the particulates. The particulates are accumulated and drop to a collection area and the cleaner gas passed upwards.
   4. Electrostatic Precipitators use electrostatically charged plates to attract the ions particulate.
      

      A diagram illustrating the mechanism of an electrostatic precipitator. Image Credit: Studio BKK/Shutterstock.com

   5. Mist Collectors, also known as moisture eliminator filters, removes moisture and vapors such as smoke, oil & mist from gas streams. These devices use fine mesh-like filters to separate the liquid vapors and collect them into a separate chamber.
   6. Incinerators are devices that use combustion to breakdown pollutants into non-toxic byproducts. This is widely used to convert VOCs, Hydrocarbons, and other Hazardous Air Pollutants(HAP) into not harmful compounds such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen. Usually, it is followed by scrubbers as it removes any additional compounds formed through the combustion process.

With this equipments installed the industrial premises will allow the operations to go on.

Now I know why we don’t see much of dirty smoke in our industrial estates.

Reference:
Environmental Protection and Management Act (EPMA)

Part IV Air Pollution Control

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/EPMA1999#:~:text=Search%20within%20Legislation&text=An%20Act%20to%20consolidate%20the,and%20for%20purposes%20connected%20therewith.&text=1.,Environmental%20Protection%20and%20Management%20Act.

Air Pollution Control Equipment

https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/plant-facility-equipment/understanding-air-pollution-control-equipment/

As we have discussed in the 2 previous posts, one of the main contributors to air pollution is smog from transportation, Producing carbon dioxides, sulfur dioxides & nitrogen oxides.

However, during the recent lockdowns happening across the globe due to Covid-19,  a downward trend of these pollutants are observed.

Pollutants such as Nitrogen Dioxide, PM2.5, Carbon Monoxide & Sulfur Dioxide are seen in decreasing in trends from the diagrams below

China

PM2.5 Nitrate, weekly averages in China. Image: Reuters Graphic

Emissions in China. Image: Reuters Graphics

As seen from the diagram above the emission of PM2.5 can be seen reducing during the lockdown period in china.

With the low number of vehicles on the road, we can see a reduction in the emission of nitrogen dioxide.

South Korea

In early March there was a large increase in COVID cases in South Korea. Even though they did not impose a full lockdown but due to the restriction measures imposes there, there some decrease in the pollutants as can be seen in the diagrams below.

Monthly averages of micrograms per cubic meter, in Seoul, 2014-2020. Image: Reuters Graphics

Italy

Just like china, Italy also had a large amount of COVID 19 infections and they imposed a lockdown too

Emissions in Italy. Image: Reuters Graphics

India

In India, even though the lockdown wasnt totally implemented, but due to their restrictions in the city. The emission of smog can be seen reduced in the graphics below.

Image: Bhushan Kumar, Sunil Kataria / Reuters.

As seen from all the diagrams above, we can see that even though the lockdown is not something that we like as it disrupts our work and education, but this is a positive outcome that resulted from it. This proves that if we are able to work together and reduce the traffics and operations from power plants we can reduce the emissions of pollutants.

References:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid19-air-pollution-enviroment-nature-lockdown

Hi readers! we begin with another not-so-fun-fact:

“Currently, in the world, there are over 500 million cars, by 2030 the number will rise to 1 billion, therefore doubling pollution levels.”

Cartoon about pollutants in the air

What are these pollutants that are polluting our air and affecting our lives?

• Sulfur Dioxide 

Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) is emitted from the burning of fuels in unregulated vehicle engines(Seigneur, 2019) that causes smog that polluted the air. SO₂ oxidizes with the oxygen in the atmosphere and turns into sulphuric acid that causes acid rain. If inhaled it may causes irritation on their airway, nose, throat, lung and may cause coughing and difficulty in breathing.

• Carbon Monoxide

Carbon Monoxide (CO) inorganic carbonaceous compound (Seigneur, 2019).  It can react with the hemoglobin in the bloodstream that causes a lack of oxygen in the blood. It is the first pollutant to be regulated by implementing a catalytic converter that converts it into Carbon Dioxide(CO₂ ).

• Nitrogen Oxide

Nitric Oxide(NO) & Nitrogen Dioxide(NO₂ ) are pollutants emitted from the combustion process. These two compounds form the majority of nitrogen oxide in the atmosphere. Just like the other pollutants it may also oxidize and form nitrogen oxides that are greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. When oxidize into nitric acid it may cause acid rain like sulphuric acid.

These are some pollutants in the air that are dangerous and will affect our health especially since most of us live around areas where there are high amount of traffic

Good Night!

References:

Cartoon https://www.momscleanairforce.org/pollution-cartoon-2/

Seigneur, C. (2019). Gaseous Pollutants. In Air Pollution: Concepts, Theory, and Applications (pp. 146-189). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108674614.008

Hi everyone. Welcome to my blog on pollution. I would like to start of with an interesting fact.

Inhaling air pollution takes away at least 1-2 years of a typical human life!

Air pollution is introducing harmful pollutants particles into the atmosphere. These harmful pollutants may be in the form of gaseous chemicals or biological materials that causes discomfort or diseases that may harm our organs. It might also harm our sources of food such as crops and plantation thus affecting the production of food.

One major cause of air pollution is burning of fossil fuel. Burning of fossil fuel provide petroleum for transportation and energy to run our appliances. However it emits harmful particles like carbon dioxides  that causes global warming, mercury & Sulphur dioxide that causes acid rain and breathing problems if inhaled.

Burning of fossil fuel

However as depressing as this may sound. Air pollution have a solution. We may promote and adopt the use of clean energy. By doing this we reduce the usage of fossil fuel and thus we may reduce the harmful effect of air pollution.

The subsequent blog post I will talk more the effects and solutions of for air pollution.

See you on my next post!

References:

Fossil Fuels: The dirty facts by Melissa Denchak from Natural Resources Defense Council https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fossil-fuels-dirty-facts#sec-whatis

Air pollution facts by Rinkesh
conserve-energy-future.com/various-air-pollution-facts.php#:~:text=Fact%201%3A%20An%20average%20American,as%20breathing%20problems%20and%20death.