A nice new thing

By Michael L. McManus

In the 1980s and 90s, while driving to Los Angeles, I used to notice the deep blue sky above, and too often, a darkish brown layer on the horizon. Getting closer to downtown LA, it was palpable. I remember sometimes my eyes burned and you could taste and smell the air pollution. It seems to have improved in recent years. Other cities have similar problems, and the fifty states all pass their own regulations about how much carbon-emission can be emitted from cars, resulting, some say, in as much as over 30 different blends of gasoline in the US. That costs money, but means jobs, and let’s hope cleaner air.

Air pollution apparently travels far distances. I hear that on some days, LA has over 30% of its pollution coming directly from China. That’s far! What can we do? How to live a long life in some parts of the world? Oh well, I guess we are doomed. But then again, who wants to move to Iceland! I am like the millions of others, I want to choose where I live on the planet, but, now, I guess, I am starting to consider air quality among the other things such as quality of life, sociability, transportation and culture.

There may be a bright spot on the horizon. And it might just be one of the nice new things to come along. I am talking about, yes, another electronic appliance for the home. And most of us do live most of our time indoors. Yes, we can control the air we sleep in! Let’s take back our air!

This discovery came about rather late in my life. I now ask more questions of my doctor. I recently was diagnosed with a mild form of COPD, a fairly common respiratory disease, which is usually treated with inhalers and medicine. He asked me about pollution in Seoul. I told him I had heard that we get a fairly steady stream of it from China and it is often yellow dust fine particles. Much of this is generated by winds in the Gobi Desert that whip up super fine dust particles, some as small as one millionth of a meter. These can be ingested into the lungs, even the bloodstream, and can cause permanent damage. He suggested my getting a HEPA filter for the apartment. I took a spirometer test to see my lung capacity and it indicated I had a moderate restriction, probably due to my smoking much earlier in my life. I was just barely qualified for surgery, which is how bad it was.

My first task when back in Seoul was to go shopping for what he recommended a HEPA air filter. HEPA stands for “high efficiency particulate air.” I was quite pleased to see that they have taken a giant step in effectiveness and efficiency for portable one, two, or three room units, and the price seemed right. There were many very good brands to choose from. Basically, the unit is a box that stands on the floor with a super quiet, multi-speed fan, and three or four separate filters. The HEPA filter itself removes up to 99.97% of particulates, including fine dust, pet hair, molds, mites, smoke and other odors.

Most of these boxes have electronic controls which show a color indicator for present air, a timer, and an automatic fan regulator which maintains efficient operation. The “blue” zone indicates clean air, and let me tell you, I can smell the difference. My unit reaches all of a three bedroom apartment, and removes cooking odors in minutes. The best part is sleeping at night. I wake up refreshed.

Now, here is the real deal as they say. I installed an app on my cell phone called ASIA Air Quality. It uses a grid of reporting stations around Seoul and finds the closest one using GPS. In seconds, I get my air quality both in a numerical score and a color code. Green is best, yellow, followed by orange and red. In many recent weeks, Seoul has been in the yellow zone, sometimes orange, indicating “moderate conditions” meaning I am affected. I always know my apartment will be cleaner than outside.

On particularly “orange” high score days, the machine takes a lot longer to go from red to yellow to green to blue. If the kitchen is in use, it goes to yellow for a while, then returns to green and blue. One particularly bad night, when the score was “unhealthy” outside, the machine worked hard changing colors all night long.

How to make this even better? There are some micro-fine dust particulates that are serious and embed in our lung tissue. We need to improve the current 99.97% removal rate to a higher one, of course. Future models may have auto GPS controls, and other control panel features that show the exact nature of particulates. The uses are so numerous it is hard to imagine that this would not become a hot “must have” item for many in cities such as Seoul.

We can do a lot of things in these times, but we can’t limit the pollution we receive from our neighboring countries. It is hard for individuals to do much even in their home towns! And the younger folks may not think this is as useful as another TV or kitchen appliance. However, caution should be observed for parents with young children, the elderly and the many with COPD. It used to be that we could do nothing but suck it in, all the bad stuff. Now we can take control indoors.

This product will not be “the next new thing” because it is not small enough nor electronic enough. But, it might be “a nice new thing” for those who want to take back control of our air.

Michael L. McManus writes twice monthly and exclusively for The Korea Times. He serves several universities in the Seoul area as international advisor and welcomes comments at mcmismism@aol.com.