This year’s Clean Air Day was another busy one for the WM-Air team, with a range of University of Birmingham events and activities: TRANSITION Clean Air Network and UK100 jointly organised a stakeholder event, ‘Beyond the Clean Air Zone’, at Birmingham Library, organised by Suzanne Bartington and Francis Pope, and attended by Bill Bloss, John Bryson and Omid Ghaffarpasand. The interactive workshop brought together 30+ councillors, researchers, practitioners, and citizen representatives to consider evidence emerging from ‘Clean Air Zone’ initiatives implemented in UK cities, with a view to defining key challenges and future solutions. This was followed by a networking reception in The Air We Breathe exhibition at The Exchange.
Elsewhere, Nicole Cowell and Joe Acton worked with the sustainable transport team at on a pilot study measuring air quality along the A38 cycleway. Using one of the BrumBreathes E-Cargo bikes (on loan to the University from Birmingham City Council), both research grade and low cost sensing equipment were fitted into the cargo hold of the bike before riding from campus to Birmingham New Street station via the traffic segregated blue route cycleway. NO2, NOx and PM data were collected to provide insight to cyclist exposure along the route.
Meanwhile, Catherine Muller and Clarissa Baldo manned a WM-Air / IGI Clean Air stand at the University of Birmingham’s Sustainability Town Hall event, with talks from MSc student Jessie May who is exploring air quality along Birmingham canals, and Rhiannon Blake who introduced the ASAP East Africa project.
In the evening, UoB clean air researchers supported a public engagement event at The Exchange, where Suzanne Bartington outlined the health impacts of air pollution in the West Midlands region, followed by presentations by Dr Atanu Mukherjee, a respiratory specialist who works with children and young people and guest speaker Kirsten de Vos, a Birmingham based member of Mums for Lungs. The event was attended by ~30 members of the public and was presented as part of The Air We Breathe Public Programme.
There was also a lot of social media activity on the day, which can be viewed by visiting @WMAir_UoB or searching #UoBCleanAirDay on Twitter.