{"id":12108,"date":"2019-02-18T16:58:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T11:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/know-particulate-matter-2-5-10-endangering-life\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T16:58:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T11:28:47","slug":"know-particulate-matter-2-5-10-endangering-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/know-particulate-matter-2-5-10-endangering-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Know How Particulate Matter 2.5 and 10 Are Endangering Your Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">When the experts talk about <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/what-is-air-pollution\/\">pollution levels<\/a><\/span>, we also hear them mentioning how PM (particulate matter) levels have increased during high pollution days. We all know there is pollution in the air and AQI is quite high. But what do we know about AQI and PM level in the air?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">In this blog, we discuss more about Particulate Matter and how they control the quality of the air we breathe.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\"><strong>Particulate Matter \u2013 Definition &amp; Source<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Particle pollution or PM is a complex mixture of tiny dust particles that are almost invisible to our naked eyes. These particle pollutions are made of several airborne components including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, organic chemicals, soil, and metal compounds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">PM 2.5 is an inhalable particle with a diameter which is 10 micrometers or smaller. Inhaling these small-sized particulate matter causes common health issues which can also lead to chronic health problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1317\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Air-pollution-particulate-matter.jpg\" alt=\"Air pollution - particulate matter\" width=\"1484\" height=\"906\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Particulate matter present in the air is mostly emissions emitted from power plants, chemical industries, and automobiles. Breathing minuscule air particles gets deep into our lungs and gets in our bloodstream which has a direct effect on our lungs and heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Recommended &#8211; <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/here-are-the-10-main-causes-of-air-pollution\/\">10 Main Causes Of Air Pollution <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000; font-size: 18pt;\"><strong>Harmful Effects of Particulate Matter<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">According to recent scientific study by WHO, exposure to particulate matter causes a variety of health and environmental effects which is only increasing. Breathing PM 2.5 infected air is causing over 3% of cardiopulmonary and 5% of lung-cancer death globally. It has also been reported that particulate matter exposure has reduced the life expectancy of the population by 1.8 years which is almost 2 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\"><strong><em>Health effects of PM level<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Particulate 2.5 and 10 include inhalable air particles that are small enough to cause numerous <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/5-things-how-air-pollution-affects-you-and-your-family\/\">short-and-long-term health issues, irrespective of the age<\/a><\/span>. Breathing polluted air for too long can cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Aggravation of asthma or bronchitis<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Sinusitis<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Decreased lung function<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Difficulty in breathing<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Irritation of the airways leading to persistent coughing<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Irregular heartbeats causing palpitation<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Premature death in people with heart or lung disease<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">People with heart or lung disease, children, pregnant women, older people are most likely to be affected by particulate matter exposure. Monitoring ambient <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/how-monitoring-air-quality-data-has-become-an-absolute-necessity\/\">air quality<\/a><\/span> before stepping outside during high pollution days can help people to be safe from getting any health issues from air pollution.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\"><strong><em>Environmental effects of Particulate Matter<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1316\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/particulate-matter-environmental-pollution.jpg\" alt=\"particulate matter - environmental pollution\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">The quality of the air also depends on wind speed and direction. A simple change of wind direction, the air quality can be different from one place to another. That means, particles can be carried over long distances by wind and then settle on ground or water.\u00a0Depending on the chemical composition, particulate matter has the ability to impact our surrounding, severely affecting our environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">making lakes and streams acidic<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">changing the nutrient balance in coastal waters and large river basins<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">depleting the nutrients in the soil<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">damaging sensitive forests and farm crops<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">affecting the diversity of ecosystems<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">contributing\u00a0to\u00a0acid rain effects<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000; font-size: 18pt;\"><strong>What can be done to reduce the impact of particulate matter in our lives?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">In our country, both in rural and urban cities, the level of indoor and outdoor pollution is increasingly high. We are always surrounded by various sources of air pollution \u2013 be it in house pollution or outdoors. Exposure to tobacco smoke, cooking smoke, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/wwaw.aqi.in\/blog\/household-cleaning-products-indoor-air-pollution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">chemical products that often constitute cleaning products<\/a><\/span>, beauty, and health care products, pet dander, dust mites, mold, and pollen are the root cause for the rise of pollution. Environmental pollution occurs due to open burning of garbage and toxic gas emission from the landfill, and vehicular pollution to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Things that can help reduce PM level in the air:<\/span><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Carpool, use public transportation, bike, or walk whenever possible<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Use environmentally safe paints and cleaning products<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Avoid burning leaves, trash, and other materials<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; color: #000000;\">Our contribution lies in being responsible and aware of our surroundings and how it is directly affecting our lives on a daily basis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Check real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) on<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aqi.in\">www.aqi.in<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">and learn more about various pollution trend throughout the country.<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the experts talk about pollution levels, we also hear them mentioning how PM (particulate matter) levels have increased during&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3445],"tags":[3551,3534,3469,3552,3599,3553,3555,3556,3672,3626,3627,3663,3648],"class_list":["post-12108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-quality-index-en-gb","tag-air-monitoring-en-gb","tag-air-pollutants-en-gb","tag-air-pollution-en-gb","tag-air-pollution-in-india-en-gb","tag-air-quality-en-gb","tag-air-quality-index-en-gb","tag-aqi-en-gb","tag-aqi-india-en-gb","tag-asthma-en-gb","tag-environment-en-gb","tag-environmental-effects-en-gb","tag-health-effects-en-gb","tag-smog-en-gb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aqi.in\/blog\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}