Tim Turney, a leading expert on dust and noise monitoring from Casella, said the firm had monitored the levels of PM10s
resulting from the Saharan dust cloud that landed in the UK earlier this week.
He said the levels of air pollution had risen sixfold from 10ug/m3 to around 60ug/m3 at their headquarters in Bedford, which would put it into the moderate level of exposure, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair’s (Defra) ranking system. On this ranking, anything over 100 would be considered unacceptable.
When Turney then monitored central London sites, the level rose by a further 20ug/m3 – although the monitors are located in construction areas where other air pollution exposure could have influenced levels.
He said: “There has definitely been a noticeable increase, and this was elevated in London. It does certainly put vulnerable persons at greater risk.”
Turney said there needed to be greater awareness of air pollution among employers – and communication of the risks with staff. For example, employees that cycled to work could be at greater risk due to pollution.
He said: “I used to see daily air pollution levels on the weather following the news (on television), but that doesn’t seem to happen anymore.
“When the red sun happened, it was all about a beautiful sunset in the news, but it would be good for national news and media to provide good quality information on air pollution for the public.”
Turney said the information about pollution was freely available on the Defra website and urged employees to inform staff when levels were high.
It is also possible for employers to follow @defraukair on Twitter to receive daily information on local air pollution levels.
His comments follow a leading charity has raised concern about the Saharan dust that arrived in parts of the UK and told suffers to ‘stay indoors’ during the unusual weather.
According to Asthma UK, the ‘red sun’ phenomenon occurred because winds had been pulled up from north Africa due to the impact of Hurricane Ophelia.
Sonia Munda, head of the helpline at Asthma UK, said: “We are deeply concerned about the toxic air from Saharan dust that Hurricane Ophelia has churned up, as this could pose a severe risk for the 5.4million people in the UK who have asthma.
“Winds picking up dust and particles in the air could trigger potentially fatal asthma attacks.
“When a similar dust storm happened in April 2014, Asthma UK found a third of people told us they’d had an asthma attack as a result of the pollution and 84% said they had used their blue inhaler more than usual.
“We urge anyone with severe asthma to check weather forecasts and stay indoors where possible. Everyone with asthma must make sure they take their reliever inhaler (usually blue) everywhere with them and continue to manage their asthma with their preventer inhaler (usually brown).
“If you have an asthma attack and are unable to control it, call 999. For further information and support visit asthma.org.uk/Saharan-dust.”
The charity also warned:
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
