Beat bad air quality: three ways to cope with air pollution, from California to China
- With fires raging in California and smog blanketing Asian capitals, here are three ways to breathe easier
- We look at air purifiers, face masks and more holistic approaches
A lot of people are looking for ways to cope with bad air quality, whether it be smoke from forest fires in California, smog in New Delhi and Beijing, or a seasonal change in wind direction sweeping factory pollutants into Hong Kong’s skies.
So what are some of the practical steps you can take to protect yourself and ease your worries about the air you are forced to breathe? And what do the experts say?
1. Face masks
Vogmask is an anti-pollution face mask designed for babies, children and adults. The firm started in California, in 2013, producing masks developed to protect partygoers from dust at the Burning Man festival, in the Nevada desert. The South Korean-made products claim to remove at least 99 per cent of airborne particles. The whole mask is a filter.
Dr Tian Linwei, associate professor at the School of Public Health, at the University of Hong Kong, has this to say about using face masks: “They prevent large particles. However, our noses also stop large particles. If you want to stop small particles, you need a very, very good mask, which takes a lot of pressure to breathe through. This can cause another kind of damage, which can be dangerous for the elderly and children.”