Might of the small

Sometimes, all it takes is just a small thread to bring down an entire tapestry down. That’s the power of the small.

By merely buying and using a low cost Air Quality Monitoring or AQM devices, in Whitefield, Bangalore, a clutch of people have managed to prove it that the factory of Graphite India in the vicinity was polluting the locality in a big way.

These AQMs might not give the accurate, right to the decimal kind of reading on air quality but their reading is good enough to indicate broadly the quality of air. And these AQMs around Graphite India showed that the air quality index (AQI) was touching 400 on some days (moderate AQI is 51 to 100), especially in the mornings before 8 a.m. Clearly, traffic was not to be blamed. This was proof enough to show that the factory was polluting the air.

After a really prolonged legal battle, Graphite India was forced to down shutters in April 2019. The people and the low-cost AQMs had played a key role.

Low cost AQMs are truly affordable, can be easily installed and the readings can be accessed and analysed from anywhere. The most popular one in the market comes from Urban Sciences, the company that designs and sells Atmos AQMs. Other companies such as Air Care, Air Veda and Kaiterra also offer similar devices.

So if you are breathing really poor quality air, check out these devices and collectively as a community, invest in these AQMs to improve the quality of your life. Afterall, you are alive as long as you breathe.