Breathing is fun, isn't it? How often do you underestimate how important breathing is? We all just do it, don't we? So why am I writing about his rather mundane thing here? Breath in right now heavily. I mean it. As I write this I took a big lungful of air and held it and then let it out. I Did, honestly … If this was Victorian England then the rest of this post would have been done through a ouija board, due to the high levels of Smog (See notes about that elsewhere. Suffice to say that because of the huge amount of fatalities the government made something called the clean air act). So what sort of things is the government doing right now to look at the levels of air pollution?
As a massive fan of science fiction, I thought that I would start with the UK Space agency. Nasa did their own studies of what are the best plants to help improve air quality and - due to various science fiction books that I read - know that the best way to create a life support system on a star ship is to have a biological system to help improve the CO2 emission (Kim Stanley Robinson is amazing). So why ask this to the UK space agency? If they have done ANY studies on how to use biological system for oxygen recycling, then surely this can be used here to help improve the air quality? The answer I go was a LITTLE bit more interesting than I realised AND got me thinking about ANOTHER FoI request that I could ask…
This got me thinking again, biological system are probably the BEST way to increase ANY air quality. It’s relatively cheap, uses no chemicals and really has no bad sides. So why not promote it? The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) don't give any grants towards biological methods of reducing air pollutants but did say they help local council make new ways of increasing air quality through other methods. Another FoI Request for that one, me thinks!. Now the really cool thing about this is that DEFRA DID give details about organisations which help increase green sectors. One is the Green Investment Bank and the other is the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Amazing!
As an additional, a Mr T Henderson on www.whatdotheyknow.com asked for a number of different air quality reports, which are pretty cool!
I did ask the Animal and Plant Health Agency if they had looked at how plants affect air quality, but they basically told me that I got the wrong department. Where to go from here? A quick check in with Fera (formerly Central Science Labs) found that they have not done any studies on biological system either. Well, we all know that trees have a HUGE impact upon our air quality, so why not ask the Forestry Commission. The clue is in the title “FORESTRY COMMISSION”, so it is probably unlikely that they have done any studies into air quality in the uk, BUT they may know how many trees are in the UK. Turns out that they have made it public ALREADY. Good eh? This would be able to give us a good understanding of how nature helps with our ability to breath.
This isn't something to do with air quality, but is interesting none the less, Welsh Water uses advanced digestion to help generate green energy. Good init kids?
Full disclosure, this is not the article that I was going to write. I was going to write about how to make a star ship and how I was going to write this as a way of “not arousing suspicion” - Like I did with the skynet thing. Then I got researching on this one and found the Welsh Air Quality Index. The cool thing is that all welsh councils are members and it is funded by the Welsh Government. How much does the Welsh Government give these guys? Only time will tell. Shows though that this is an important area and that we are working well on it!
PS the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens didn't have anything on plant life being used to remove diseases...
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