How Popular Is DIY Pollution Monitoring?

The number of people using DIY air quality monitoring technology is on the increase, according to environmental group Friends of the Earth. The charity, which manufactures and supplies air monitoring kits to donors, has announced that over 4,000 Britons have used them in the last 12 months, with more than 70 organised groups sharing information to gain a greater understanding of air quality in their area.

The trend is part of a greater global upsurge in the use of emissions monitoring systems (EMS) around the world. As the threat of climate change and its potential consequences become more publicised, people are keen to learn how exactly they will be affected and possibly alter their daily habits accordingly.

Government apathy a cause for concern

At present, there are currently more than 70 localised Friends of the Earth organisations across the UK which have pledged to share information about air quality in their area. These include towns and regions as varied as Sussex, Lancashire, Bristol and Yorkshire, where concerned residents are looking to take matters into their own hands.

“More people are tracking air quality partly because there is very little local data… you’d think that in a first world country, we would be well covered with sensors – but there is hardly anything. The air pollution could be good where I am now and 300m down the street it could be bad,” explained Sam Prince, a 38-year-old Bristolian committed to the clean air cause.

“The data from the government is useless as far as I am concerned... so people are trying to collect more evidence to show the big problem of air quality. What I want to build is a map showing the pollution levels all over Bristol so you could avoid a certain street or area, for example, if you were cycling to work.”

The rise in public concern surrounding air quality has been mirrored in the impressive growth of the Air Quality and Emissions Event 2017, held in Telford this May. There was a 20% increase in attendance rates compared to 2015 figures, heralding the nation’s growing preoccupation with our airwaves.

A global trend

It’s not just in the UK that the popularity of DIY pollution monitoring is on the rise. A recent report from Transparency Market Research predicted that the EMS market would grow by 7.5% year on year over the next eight years, resulting in a total surge in value from $3.74 billion now to $7.23 billion in 2025.

The phenomenon has become particularly widespread in countries where air quality is a huge problem but the government has not implemented pollution monitoring on a large scale, especially in the Asia Pacific Region. Specifically, it’s expected that developing countries such as China and India will be responsible for a significant chunk of this growth, since the market is already relatively matured in Europe and the States.

Continuing innovations in air quality technology have made monitors more attractive to the layman, since they are more affordable and more capable of collecting sophisticated datasets than ever before. Armed with more information about the air we breathe and how it affects not only our planet but our own lives, there is a growing onus on the governments, corporations and industries of the world to tackle this issue head on.