Author Topic: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?  (Read 1008 times)

gunwharfman

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Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« on: 15:53:12, 30/11/18 »
We hear and read a lot about air pollution and its often crossed my mind if I should buy a charcoal type face filter or not? When I worked and lived in London in the 80s, I used my bike a lot and I used a filter then. In the street where I lived we could open our street windows, if we did everything became covered in black smut very quickly.

Although I now live beside the sea our city is often reported for high levels of pollution. I still tend to use my bike a lot around the city and its something I'm considering again, I find that now I'm 73 my life has become very precious to me!

I pedalled into our main shopping centre this morning and on two occasions I had to stand behind diesel engined buses. When the  traffic lights changed, as always they just roared away in front of me. I was obviously showered in and breathed in what ever stuff came out of their exhaust pipes and I could smell it.

I've thought about this a few times when I've been hiking, but only when I've had to walk along village or town streets when the traffic is at its height and slowest. A walk through part of central Manchester to the coach station a couple of years ago was very unpleasant!

fernman

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #1 on: 18:17:38, 30/11/18 »
If you've made it this far, to 73, I don't think you've got much to worry about.

As the majority of us on here walk in the countryside I don't think we need to worry either. I have noticed during my multiple-day walks that my nose-blows are clean compared with when I'm at home in the suburbs (sorry, distateful I know, but included because it is relevant).

I see Japanese tourists in central London and coming out of Arrivals at Heathrow with facemasks on, and to me they look absolute twa*s, though I have been told they also wear them if they have a cold, which is rather considerate.

barewirewalker

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #2 on: 19:20:36, 30/11/18 »
There is a downside to scaremongering on pollution, especially for us walkers. If you take one of the prime arguments used for keeping people out countryside used by those, who have been conditioned to argue against public access, is the increase of cost of insurance against public liability. Although the level of actual risk is very low, being prepared to allow access beyond the RoW network, is actively lobbied against.

The more we think there is a risk the more that lobby will play on those fears, I am more likely to avoid going on an plane flight because of a likely risk of a cocktail of recycled virus and bacteria, which I know are going to affect my quality of life in the weeks to come.

Use this argument to tell the occupiers of our countryside to allow us to walk away from roadside verges, now even the most rural are cluttered by white van drivers and commuting incomers, from expensive lets landowners have made in the Victorian farm buildings, no longer wanted for agricultural use.
 
I had an object lesson in the use of this fear tactic some years ago. An estate manager must have acquired job lot of chemical warning notices, these were used at strategic locations around the estate together with discarded chemical containers, I knew that the particular chemicals were not likely to have been used in these locations, not many others would have known.

In lowland Scotland, I found field margins sprayed with a contact weedkiller used as a deterrent for walkers using there right of access, but that weedkiller is immediately inert on contact with the ground.
 
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

BuzyG

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #3 on: 19:49:06, 30/11/18 »
If I believed for one moment that the air out side my front door needed filtering before I could breath it safely, I would move home. 

Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #4 on: 10:52:41, 01/12/18 »
I don’t think the little white filters we see some tourists wear will be very effective against traffic pollution. The main hazard are CO, NOx and small particulate matter that can cross the lung membranes into the blood stream. Those filters won’t stop these.

NeilC

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #5 on: 10:58:51, 01/12/18 »
I don’t think the little white filters we see some tourists wear will be very effective against traffic pollution. The main hazard are CO, NOx and small particulate matter that can cross the lung membranes into the blood stream. Those filters won’t stop these.


Exactly. You can get cyclist masks but they're plastic and make breathing harder and even they only remove some pollution.


To do it properly you need a full mask like a paint sprayers one.


Not worth the hassle or discomfort.

Slowcoach

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #6 on: 11:15:25, 01/12/18 »
Just hold your breath.
It's all uphill from here.

Mel

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #7 on: 15:41:41, 01/12/18 »
A face filiter?  Don't fancy having my face filleted. Sounds painful  :D




harland

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #8 on: 17:24:21, 01/12/18 »
Just hold your breath.
That is better than using the WW2 gas masks we were issued with that filtered the air with asbestos!  I guess that you may have lasted longer than breathing in the gas. :-\

happyhiker

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #9 on: 10:49:34, 02/12/18 »
If I ever need a mask to go hiking, I'll give it up!

gunwharfman

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Re: Air pollution. Would you buy a face filiter?
« Reply #10 on: 17:45:42, 02/12/18 »
Ive looked at various face filter reviews but have not seen one yet that is widely recommended. All seem to have face fitting problems and/or they become hot and wettish inside.

I remember as a young person, coming home from school in South London in the winter, getting through London smogs often made our faces very dark with the amount of soot and other grime in the air. Then came the Clean Air Act and gradually smog came to an end.

I am aware of pollution, in my own city and especially when I'm stuck in a motorway traffic jam. The other day we had a lot of rain where I live, when it was over the air, as I breathed it in, felt much better.

 

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