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Is there anything good samaritan citizens can do locally (on a standard residential lot) to improve the particulate pollution levels outdoors around their house
by cwkoss 3y ago
Is there anything good samaritan citizens can do locally (on a standard residential lot) to improve the particulate pollution levels outdoors around their house? (and possibly their neighbors' too?).
What are the effects of trees/plants on PM2.5 pollution? Are there plants that catch more? Do damp leaves catch more?
Does watering plants with a mist pull extra microparticles out of the air vs a stream? (if so, Do plants mind or benefit from the extra stuff in their water?)
Are there any "permaculture" solutions for air filtration? Could a filter caked with pm2.5 black carbon and whatnot be useful for anything else? Can I manufacture a filter that will reduce pm2.5 using home grown plant materials?
What if I converted a wall of my shed into all filtration material, made it airtight, and pushed air out the other side of the shed under solar power? How would 100sqft of filter give flexibility of filter media?
If I made a giant/parallelized bong in my backyard that constantly pulled air through water to try to catch microparticles, how big would it have to be to have an appreciable effect? Would ground charcoal in the water help?
- aidenn0 3y agoDon't use leaf blowers; those are a huge source of outdoor particulates.
- cwkoss 3y agoI got a rechargeable battery powered leaf blower last year and love it. Plenty powerful for my needs, and ~10 mins is almost always plenty for all I need to get stuff cleaned up. But i suppose they might temporarily kick up a bunch of dust, regardless of power source...
- cowsandmilk 3y ago> they might temporarily kick up a bunch of dust To me, this is why raking just makes sense. I can’t stand the dust from leaf blowers. And often, just mowing over the leaves is adequate and better for the environment.
- cwkoss 3y agoYep, I only leaf blow on the sidewalks and concrete paths that get some extra grass leaking over when I mow the adjacent areas. New thing I'm trying this year is to pull garden weeds and toss them on top of the grass right before a mow as a two-bird-with-one-stone compost in place free grass fertilizer.
- Analemma_ 3y agoBasically don't use anything with a two-stroke engine, they are horrible for the environment. There's an astonishing-but-true fact that California's leaf blowers make more particulate pollution than all the cars and trucks in the state put together because two-strokes are so dirty.
- cyberax 3y agoTwo-stroke engines are bad not only for the environment, but also for the people who operate them. These engines not only produce a ton of particulate emissions, but also a lot of half-burned and unburned hydrocarbons. Including formaldehyde, benzene, and all kinds of other crap. You can at least filter out particulates with an N99 mask, but it does nothing against hydrocarbons.
- armada651 3y agoNot to mention that a lot of people use them without hearing protection and given how notoriously loud they are they're also giving themselves hearing damage.
- joelcollinsdc 3y agoSo a four stroke leaf blower would be ok?
- aidenn0 3y agoAll that weight would probably be bad for your back...
- aerio 3y agoThat's why I dual wield two normal leaf blowers instead!
- enragedcacti 3y agothey are much better than a 2-stroke but still far worse than e.g. a modern vehicle because the emissions technology is either much much simpler or not present at all.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 3y agoSales of new gas mowers and leaf blowers are banned in California starting July 1st, 2024. "As California Goes, so Goes the Nation." https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1346 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... > Brand new gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers will soon become scarce in California. In October 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning the sale of gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers, as well as any other equipment using small off-road engines, also known as SOREs. These engines traditionally power equipment used in lawn care and landscaping. > Small engine-based tools are a surprisingly large source of carbon emissions and air pollution. According to the California Air Resources Board, just one hour of gas leaf blower use is the equivalent of driving 1,100 miles. Running a gas lawn mower for the same period equates to a 300-mile drive. https://www.cnet.com/home/yard-and-outdoors/loud-gas-belching-leaf-blowers-will-soon-be-illegal-in-1-state-is-this-just-the-beginning/ https://www.cnet.com/home/yard-and-outdoors/loud-gas-belchin... https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/offroad/sm_en_fs.pdf https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/offroad/sm_en_fs.pdf https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/30/gas-leaf-blower-mower-bans-spread-us-fight-climate-change/11746893002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/30/gas-le... ("Gas leaf blowers and lawn mowers are shockingly bad for the planet. Bans are beginning to spread.") (electric landscaping tools are at parity, check out the EGO brand for an example: https://egopowerplus.com/ https://egopowerplus.com/)
- throwoutway 3y agoThe person you are replying to did not mention gas (just lead blowers in general) but your post seems to only focus on gas leaf blowers. California did not ban electric leaf blowers did they?
- toomuchtodo 3y agoElectric leaf blowers are annoying, but not burning fuel with zero emissions controls such that gas landscaping appliances are, hence bans on the gas versions causing wild amounts of pollution for the amount of fuel burned. There is a reason combustion vehicles are mandated to have a catalytic converter, and why diesel vehicles must filter particulates.
- mfgs 3y agoDo you mean a petrol leaf blower? Because of the motor emissions or the blowing?
- aidenn0 3y agoIt's a fair question, and the answer is "I don't know." Petrol leaf blowers are typically 2-stroke engines which are incredibly polluting (even in an absolute sense compared to a modern 4-stroke engine for a mid-sized saloon). They also kick up a lot of dust. I'm not sure what the balance is. Certainly for e.g. NO2 and hydrocarbons switching to electric will be a huge win, but I'm not sure how much/long the particulates kicked up by blowing contribute. [edit] I found a report[1]; on page 22, the median estimated "fugitive dust" emmisions of blowing on a shoulder, or curb is about 480g (1lb) of PM2.5 per hour. It does note that this is a pure calculation and not empirically tested though. The entire range of their calculations put fugitive dust as higher particulate emissions than the exhaust (though the exhaust particulate of a 3hp leaf-blower (i.e. high-powered commercial) is already nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than a modern light-duty vehicle and a 0.8hp (i.e. typical personal-use leafblower)). 1: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Health%20and%20Environmental%20Impacts%20of%20Leaf%20Blowers.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Health%20...
- Z_I_F_F 3y ago[flagged]
- imrehg 3y ago"Let me ChatGPT that for you" reaction is likely the new "Let me Google that for you".
- ShakataGaNai 3y agoExcept with google you might get an authoritative source... where as you have no idea if ChatGPT is hallucinating or just plain wrong.
- cwkoss 3y agoFwiw: I did some searching and pine had the strongest effect on pm2.5 in the study I found. I found the answer moderately useful.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoGet rid of your car?
- skybrian 3y agoA bit drastic. Avoiding driving on days when air quality is bad would also do.
- lucasjans 3y agoThat's every day in much of the world. I lived in Southeast Asia for 8 years and 9/10 days the air was unhealthy.
- mcmoor 3y agoI recently bought an air purifier for my house and it's constantly red when used in living room that has outside windows. In other words, air quality around my house is constantly bad. By the end i moved it to an isolated room where at least we can enjoy clean air there.
- cwkoss 3y agoMaybe consider a boxfan+furnace filter for the living room - if air quality is always bad you don't really need the sensor switching
- throwaway2037 3y agoWhat city? It is too generic to say "Southeast Asia". Most of it is rural. And what is meant by "unhealthy"? What measurements? I cannot believe that 90% of days were unhealthy. Why? Rainy season is never polluted -- I know from experience in Hongkong and Singapore. Once a day or more, you get a huge downpour that takes most pollution out of the air. (This is partly why Seattle fairs very well in clean air measurements... it rains so damn much. Scottish cities, too.)
- 3y ago
- rascul 3y ago> If I made a giant/parallelized bong in my backyard Can I come hang out for a bit?
- cwkoss 3y agoAs long as you help staple filters to the wall of my filter shed!
- jojobas 3y agoThere's another side to it, while pollen is larger than PM2.5, in some weather conditions (Melbourne's cool changes for one) it will burst into multiple PM2.5 fragments.
- burnished 3y agoI like your energy, I hope you consider applying for a research grant or maybe just asking Adam Savage nicely for money to perform some experiments.
- TuringNYC 3y ago>> Is there anything good samaritan citizens can do locally (on a standard residential lot) to improve the particulate pollution levels outdoors around their house? (and possibly their neighbors' too?). This is a specific case, but in a mid-sized town where I lived, they opened up a BBQ restaurant with massive outdoor grills. The grills were fired up 5 times a week, evenings and afternoons. While it was fun times with friends at the restaurant, the entire neighborhood smelled of BBQ. Worse, you could literally go on the PurpleAir US map and see the giant visual of where the smoke was going. I cant imagine how the property values fared for nearby homes. I dont know anything about restaurant regulations, but it seems that if BBQ was allowed at this scale and allowed on a daily basis, there should be some sort of filtering requirement for exhaust. Good samaritan citizens' strongest chance for such local issues is probably voter turnout at local elections.
- redleader55 3y agoI think the source of the PM pollutant is more important than the number of particles of a specific size. For example: I don't have no data or research on how bad the smoke from the barbecue is for your health, but my intuition tells me it's probably less harmful than the smoke from an old car that needs an oil change, regardless of that the metric says about the number of particles.
- pirate787 3y agoThe primary action of particulate matter is that it gets stuck in your body (and tiny PM can penetrate into the brain) and is an inflammatory irritant the rest of your life, leading to disease. It stands to reason if the PM is also a toxic particle, the impact is worse.
- ImaCake 3y agoMost particles can be removed by your immune system. Things like asbestos are bad specifically because the kinds of particles asbestos becomes are very difficult to phagacytose (and remove).
- mschuster91 3y ago> Is there anything good samaritan citizens can do locally (on a standard residential lot) to improve the particulate pollution levels outdoors around their house? (and possibly their neighbors' too?). The most important thing is: Don't use any kind of 2-stroke gas engine powered appliances. Leaf blowers, bush trimmers, mowers, cheap electricity generators... they aren't covered by usual emission regulations and thus have barely any exhaust filtering, leading to emission of insane amounts of all kinds of toxins. On top of that they're all very bad for the local ecosystem - mowed grass tends to dry out faster, leaf blowing (or removal in general) kills safe spaces for small lifeforms. The next major pollutant are all sorts of furnaces and cooking appliances. Be it a wood pellet, gas or oil heating system, a gas stove, or the once-every-weekend BBQ... it all shows up on air quality sensors. Get a heat pump for heating (there are bi-directional air conditioners that can heat in the winter and cool in the summer), take care to not overheat oils in pans (decomposing oils are quite toxic!), and for heavens sake cut back on the BBQs if you value your lungs and those of your neighbours. The last part is to quit smoking.
- stewx 3y agoNot mowing your lawn and stopping cooking on an outdoor grill are non-starters for most people.
- namdnay 3y agoyou can mow a lawn with either an electric mower or an unpowered mower, the former can be found for any surface, the latter are great for surfaces up to about 100m2
- brewdad 3y agoMy Costco had an electric riding mower on display this week. I didn’t stop to look over all of the specs since my lawn isn’t anywhere near big enough to need one but it appears having too big of a lawn isn’t an excuse anymore when it comes to electric mowers.
- 3y ago
- mesarvagya 3y ago> Is there anything good samaritan citizens can do locally (on a standard residential lot) to improve the particulate pollution levels outdoors around their house? (and possibly their neighbors' too?). I would say electrifying your home would be a good first step. For example, we could replace following at home starting with: Gas Furnace & AC -- Heat pump Gas cooktop -- Electric cooktop Gas Blowers, Mowers -- Electric versions of same