Indoor air pollution and cigarette smoke

These days, we hear a lot about indoor air pollution and its effect on human health. But what exactly is indoor air pollution? What are the sources of indoor air pollution? Why does it occur in the first place? Well, this article will try to provide some insights on that.

To start with, let me get to pollution in general. Contrary to popular belief, a pollutant is defined as a substance present in excess of its normal concentration in the environment. That means, any substance on this earth has a the potential to be a pollutant, if it is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Air pollution is a serious issue because unlike water and land pollution, physical boundaries are not sufficient to contain it. Pollution, in that sense, is a unifying factor across national and international boundaries! Consider the case in point: rapid industrialization in Germany and France led to Sweden's lakes turning acidic due to acid rain! Now, that is what they mean when they say that the world is getting closer.

Another myth is that CO2 is a pollutant. CO2 is a green house gas and is not a pollutant. CO2 will be called a pollutant if it is present in amounts exceeding 5000ppm and since there are a lot many sinks to this particular gas, there is scant possibility of this gas making it to that high a concentration. Anyway, coming back to the point at hand, we all know what ambient air pollution is. There are standards set by the Central Pollution Control Board [CPCB] which are known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards [NAAQS]. More information can be sought at the website: www.cpcb.nic.in

However, there are no standards prescribed for the indoor environment. Why is this so? Consider the fact that there are at least a million registered and un-registered architects all over the world and each one has her / his own way of designing buildings. Each one gives different weightage to lighting and ventilation factors. Ergo, it becomes difficult to gauge how much air is going into an indoor environment and how much is leaking to the atmosphere from it. Also, the definition of the indoor environment is such that it becomes difficult to make a standard. An indoor environment is any place / location where one is not exposed to the ambient air directly. That means every place, right from schools to cars to trains and aeroplanes fall in this category. That makes a difficult job, that of specifying standards, impossible.

What then, are the sources of indoor air pollution? There are many, and a partial list can be found here: http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/airindoorairpollution.html [The website of the United States Environmental Protection Agency] You will find among the many listed sources a source called Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). Note the use of the word Environmental. Cigarette smoke has not been referred to directly, because cigarette smoke itself is a part of ETS. ETS is constiituted by cigarette smoke as well as the smoke that the smoker exhales. Overall, ETS is more harmful than cigarette smoke by itself is.

The cigarette burns at a very high temperature when the smoker inhales and the tip of the cigarette can be at as high a temperature as 900 C. Which probably explains why cigarette burns take so long to heal! Nicotine, the habit forming chemical present in tobacco, does not lead to the production of harmful gases / particulate matter. It is the "tar" present in the tobacco which leads to production of carbon monoxide and carcinogens and poly aromatic hydrocarbos like phenanthrene, flouranthene, etc. Carbon monoxide reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of human blood because it forms an irreversible bond with haemoglobin. Particulate matter settles in the lungs, and cigarette smoke has such small particles that they can deposit in the alveoli, which are the places where gas transfer takes place in the lungs i.e. oxygen is swapped for CO2.

The smoke that a smoker exhales has more of these smaller particles than he / she has himself / herself inhaled, because they are too small to get deposited in the smoker's lungs. However, in the time that elapses between a smoker exhaling and a passive smoker inhaling, these condense on other particles and grow sufficiently in size to get deposited in the passive smoker's lungs. Which is what makes passive smoking such a threat to humans! There are of course many other sources of indoor air pollution and I haven't even scratched the surface of this topic. However, I do believe that I will have generated sufficient interest in this topic by this small article for all of you to do some reading on your own. Based on the popularity of this post, I will decide whether to part with some more interesting information! Till then, adieu! :)

/R [My signature!]

Some links for reading up on indoor air pollution
1. http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/airindoorairpollution.html
2. http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/airindoorenvironmentaltobaccosmoke.html
3. http://www.who.int/indoorair/en/
4.http://www- wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000090341_20070606150339&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679

Au revoir, Thierry!

I have not been my usual chirpy self lately and M/s Henry and company at Arsenal Football Club are not helping my cause. I mean, if you want a trasnfer to another club that desperately, go get it man! Why are you moving around in the shadows, forcing people to hope against hope that you will remain a Gunner like you promised last year? If you want to renege on your promise, sever the ties in one single slash of the trasnfer sword. Don’t use the slow and painful poison on your own club, which made you a star. The club doesn’t deserve this from its own prodigal son. The problem with prodigal sons is that they soon tire of the doting parents because familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe Henry shouldn’t have been given the special treatment that he got from the club. True, he gave his heart and soul on the pitch in Arsenal colours, but when the time to say Au revoir arose, he chose to do it in such a disgraceful manner. He could have chosen the path that Bergkamp took. He could have gone to another club as quietly as Campbell did. But no, the price of being a star is that you have to have the media present with you 24×7.

And even after all the news that Henry is indeed moving to Spain, there is still that glimmer of hope somewhere in my mind that he may just stay back at The Emirates. I haven’t given up hope of that. Even if he stays, I will always hate him for what he has done over the last month.

Au revoir, Thierry. And if you do want out, please get out as soon as possible. Please don’t jeopardize the club’s and the team’s morale any more.

Football Shutball! Hai Rabba!!!

That is exactly what I am saying these days. Considering the fact that I have my final submissions looming ahead of me, I find it a tad difficult to keep up with happenings in the transfer market and the world of EPL. Sure, Man Utd. have gone ahead and copied Wenger’s style of signing young lads from Europe. And Chelsea have suddenly tightened their purse strings. I think that has something to do with the impending court cases they are bound to face if the allegations about player transfers are found to be true. Haven’t had time to read into that. Maybe will do that once my submissions are over. Wenger is on a vacation and he needs to be because he doesn’t have my counsel for making prudent purchases! :) :D

More when I return from the tedium of report writing!