Pollution Time-Out | Pollution in Sports

What can we do?

For my first few blog entries I had focused on how certain sports contributed to environmental pollution, whereas my recent entries have focused on how air pollution can impact sporting events and athletes. This week shall be more introspective, as I consider how the way we consume sports contributes to pollution. Even as organisers of…

Indoor Sports and VOCs: A Bad Matchup (Part 2)

We had previously touched on how Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) present a very real threat to the health of those partaking in indoor sports. How should we then approach this issue? According to Salonen et al. (2020) and Koivisto (2021), research is key. There currently exists a large research gap in air quality during large-scale…

Indoor Sports and VOCs: A Bad Matchup (Part 1)

When confronted with visible air pollution such as haze, authorities tend to advise against any outdoor sports and instead encourage the population to stay indoors. However, the belief that indoor spaces are safer for the human health is increasingly being questioned by the growing body of research on Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). According to Zhou…

Making Outdoor Air Safe for Sports

Following my entries on the ambiguity of determining air quality and the impacts of air pollution on athletes, we are now left with the solution: how have nations and other actors attempted to restore air quality? When it comes to transboundary pollution, tackling the source directly can be tricky owing to the lack of jurisdiction…

What is “Good” Air?

As covered in my previous blog post, air quality can have severe repercussions on human health. How then should authorities determine if air quality is suitable for outdoor sports? At what threshold would the ambient air go from being good to not-so-good? Authorities have attempted to develop various air quality indexes (AQIs) in order to…

Smoggy Marathons

Marathons are a popular sport for athletes of all ages and fitness level. When organising such a large-scale event, organisers necessarily have to take into account multiple factors in order to keep participants safe. One of these factors would be the air quality. When the air quality gets too poor, marathon events might be cancelled,…

Follow-up: (Micro)plastic Pollution

In my blog post on hiking, I had identified microplastics as a direct consequence of litter pollution. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), microplastics are broadly defined to be small plastic pieces that are less than 5mm in diameter, and are considered to be a Contaminant of Emerging Concern (CEC) due…

Follow-up: Noise Pollution

In my previous blog post, I had briefly covered the detrimental impacts of the noise pollution produced by F1 races. While F1 is not the only noise-polluting sport, today’s blog entry is not meant to identify all instances of noise pollution in sporting events. Rather, I will be focusing on noise pollution itself – what…

Leave Nothing but Footprints

Author’s note: This entry was written prior to receiving feedback on my previous blog posts and is thus meant as a general introduction to litter pollution. Subsequent posts will focus more specifically on the nuances of different types of pollution. “Leave nothing but footprints” is a well-known adage (it’s even on NParks’ website!) that has…

Lights Out and Away We…Pollute? (Part 2: Light Pollution)

I have previously covered the issue of sound pollution during Formula 1 races, now let’s turn our attention to the light pollution that is emanated by the race infrastructure. It goes without saying that proper lighting is crucial for Formula 1 races, particularly those that take place at night. Let me use the Singapore Grand…