Riverdale, NJ — Despite the ever-improving effectiveness of air filters, the air filtration industry faces an uphill battle due to a lack of information about air pollution.
While high-efficiency filters can keep airborne pollutants out of our homes, schools, offices, commercial buildings, hospitals, and industrial facilities, they only treat the symptoms of an even bigger problem. Air filters simply can’t change the everyday choices we make that contribute to poor air quality.
“Air pollution is a public health issue,” says Kevin Wood, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Camfil USA. “In Europe alone, air pollution causes 310,000 premature deaths annually, and is a growing threat in fast-developing countries.”
How does air pollution affect indoor air quality?
Today, many buildings are retrofitted with thicker insulation, vapor barriers, and new doors and windows that help keep the indoor air inside while preventing outside air from seeping inside. But this creates another indoor air quality issue.
In many buildings, the sealed environment causes a buildup of indoor air contaminants and moisture, which makes the air unhealthy. The EPA notes that these conditions may cause Sick Building Syndrome—a common label to describe headaches, nasal irritations, fatigue, and respiratory illness linked to spending time inside a building.
What everyday activities contribute to air pollution?
Each day, we all make choices that affect the quality of the air we breathe. What seems to be a mundane activity can be a contributing factor to the problem of air pollution when everyone engages in them frequently.
- Driving cars
- Spraying an aerosol
- Turning on the kitchen stove
- Burning wood on a fire
- Using kitchen appliances, such as refrigerators
Note that many of these are activities we consider essential. Even if, by some miracle, the air pollution crisis was fixed tomorrow, particulate and molecular filters would still play a critical role in buildings where occupants are exposed to airborne contaminants like pollen, dust, equipment off-gassing, and chemical fumes.
Going Beyond Air Filters
Air filters can only do so much. There needs to be a concerted effort to address the actual source of air pollution.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank have launched campaigns to encourage action against air pollution, but solving this problem requires more than just top-down solutions, green technologies, and systems that shut out air pollutants from indoor spaces
Time and again, countries and cities that provide their constituents with access to information about air pollution show the greatest strides in fighting it. For example, the Montreal Protocol sounded the alarm on the ozone layer crisis in the 1980s alongside the United States government’s ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Today, studies show that the decision to fix the ozone hole is finally paying off.
To learn more about the importance of indoor air quality control, talk to Camfil USA. If you’re interested in learning more about our air filtration systems, please visit Camfil Air Filter Locations here
Lynne Laake
Camfil USA Air Filters
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Sources:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/five-reasons-act-now-endpollution
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