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'Pollution sniffing' van hits the streets in Metro Vancouver

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A new mobile lab is helping researchers at UBC to map levels of air pollution in Metro Vancouver in real time, monitor how they change, and measure which locations are most impacted.

The Portable Laboratory for Understanding Human-Made Emissions, PLUME for short, was developed by Dr. Naomi Zimmerman and it's described as a pollution-sniffing lab on wheels. 

"I'm very passionate about all air pollution sampling happening in the community, in the real world, because this is actually the air that people in our community are breathing," she said.

"I am very confident that this is really going to up the game in terms of air pollution sampling."

Zimmerman says air pollution is a linked to nine million premature deaths globally each year.

"There is no safe level of exposure to air pollution," she said. "Even at very low concentrations, there are health effects."

The van is equipped with a pump that feeds air into it constantly, that air is sampled and the information is fed into a dashboard, Zimmerman says. A UBC student serves as a "co-pilot," making in-person observations to supplement the information gathered automatically.

"What it can do is it measures a suite of both regulated air pollutants and also emerging air pollutants. It samples those air pollutants while in motion and anywhere it happens to go," she said, adding that sensors also measure wind in order to get a better idea of which direction polluted air is blowing.

Some of what it can detect includes carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ground-level ozone, black carbon, methane, and "volatile organic compounds," according to a news release from UBC.

'IF YOU SMELL IT, REPORT IT'

Another way the van is used is to map the relationship between unpleasant smells and air pollution, Zimmerman says.

"Right now, we're sampling hotspots of odour for air pollutants," she says

PLUME is part of a project called Smell Vancouver, where anyone in the region can submit reports of unpleasant smells using an app. Zimmerman says those reports will help flag places the van should visit.

The app asks people rate how offensive the smell is and to describe it by clicking on words like "fishy, smoky, chemical, decaying animal, or rotten eggs." It also asks people whether they experienced symptoms like coughing, dizziness, nausea or headache.

LINK: https://smell-vancouver.ca/

"We're using actually a citizen-science generated map of odour hotspots to know where we should go and do some sampling," she says.

"If you smell it, report it."

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