The Real Deal
The text below is from a Hong Kong pilot's union forum- edited to protect the innocent. The test was done by a professional air filtration company. One of the pilots with the same company has been diagnosed with heavy metal readings way in excess of safe limits.
"PM is particulate matter which is the crap we breathe on a daily basis courteousy of our friends involved in Made in China.
Let me summarize what came from the conversation at the time and from a conversation i had with the good doctor i mention above (this is just referring to PM);
- 5,000 - 30,000 ppl (parts per litre of air) is the range you would expect in Switzerland or Australia
- above 105,000 is considered a 'contaminated' zone, and you should limit your expose to these types of areas (think of a surfboard shaping bay or a dusty workshop).
- the explanatory graphs in the attached doc stop at +300,000
- particles smaller than 3 microns are not blocked at all by our natural filtering system (nose hairs etc; some are more protected than others) and travel directly into our lungs.
- the air pollution indexes in HK is based around counting particles that fall within certain weight/size ranges, ergo, if a particle is lighter than it should be for it's size IT WILL NOT BE COUNTED
And the results, (drum roll please);
- a reading of 670,000ppl inside and outside my house. The fact that we had the house closed, air-con on with the air-con filter recently replaced MADE NO DIFFERENCE at all. That is almost 7 times the maximum recommended limit and 20 to over 100 times that of a bad day in Sydney or Zurich.
- a really good day in HK is still in the 100k contaminated area! 600k being average, and they say we have regular days in excess of 1,000,000ppl... god help those of you in Tung Chung, and all of us clowns on overnights in China.
- HKs 'average day' is twice the top level of the graphs... they didn't consider readings this high which is disturbing in itself.
- the majority of the particles that were detected were below 3 microns (down to .3microns) so we breathe them straight into our lungs. This explains to me why after a days work in Africa (hazy from bush fires/natural causes) you have a blocked solid nose and here all you have is an acrid taste in your throat.
- It's possible that the published API figures here are jerry rigged to prevent a mass exodus of the Expat work force and anyone else with half a brain (yes, i am still here...)
Really all it takes is to look out the window, but it helps to see it in black & white too."
