Even in your car, pollution is a threat to your health
We spend around 90% of our time indoors, where we breathe air that is up to 8 times more polluted than outside.
Long forgotten in the face of energy issues, the quality of indoor air in buildings has become a major concern during the Covid-19 epidemic. What about the car, a confined space where some of us sometimes spend long periods of time? hours, in particular road professionals : taxi, road transport, delivery person, traveling salesman, police, etc.
Drivers and their passengers are surrounded by vehicles whose exhaust gases are continually released. These gases are a cocktail of dangerous pollutants made up of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). Driving, and in particular during traffic jams where our nerves are already put to the test, we are therefore exposed to particularly polluted air. The passenger compartment, far from protecting its occupants, lets pollutants in and prevents them from escaping.
What are the solutions to fight against pollution in our car?
Overexposure to pollutants in the vehicle cabin
Exposure to automobile pollution is a major concern today. “ Behind the wheel, we breathe a toxic cocktail every day ,” declared Patrice Halimi, secretary of ASEF, in the summer of 2015. The Federation of Automobile Distribution Unions then launched a vast communication operation with the slogan: “ The air inside your car is up to 4 times more polluted than the air outside. »
Researchers from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) have significantly advanced knowledge in this domain. The work they carried out in 2007 constitutes a reference on the subject1. For two months, a vehicle equipped by them crisscrossed the Rouen and Paris urban areas. THE Incoming concentrations of pollutants were quantified and compared to current regulations. The results recorded, which are significantly higher than those measured at a stationary station, demonstrate overexposure to pollutants in the passenger compartment. of the vehicle.
What the Inserm study tells us
- For almost every hour spent in a vehicle, the WHO threshold for nitrogen dioxide (200 μg/m³ hourly average) is exceeded.
- In the heart of daily traffic, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide is ten times higher inside the vehicle than outside.
- In the wake of heavy goods vehicles and diesel vehicles, this concentration can be 65 times higher than the WHO threshold.
- As for particles, their concentration is highest on the busiest roads and in tunnels.
- For benzene, the average concentration remains high, despite a decrease in particularly emitting gasolines.
- Furthermore, half of the pollutants inside cars come from the vehicles in front of them.
Another study published in the journal Environmental Science Processes & Impacts estimated that the level of pollution was seven times higher inside a car stuck in traffic with the windows open than for pedestrians standing at an intersection. The interior pollution of a car stuck in heavy traffic is up to 40% higher than when traffic is flowing freely.
Time and pollution concentrations are the two parameters of your exposure. Source: Airparif
What are the health risks and how can we protect ourselves from them?
Inside the passenger compartment, nitrogen dioxide (NO 2), fine particles and benzene are the main pollutants.
- Nitrogen dioxide, a highly irritating gas, promotes the development of respiratory problems and cardiovascular diseases.
- Particles can irritate the respiratory tract and impair cardiorespiratory functions. Some are carcinogenic.
- Benzene promotes leukemia.
Today, we know that air pollution does not only affect physical health. Martina Benazzi, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at the child welfare service in Seine-Saint-Denis, explains: "Some studies show us a positive correlation between pollutants and psychological disorders."
According to studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the universities of Beijing and Shanghai, pollution is indirectly bad for morale. In large Chinese cities, they observed that the mood of residents varies according to peaks in fine particle pollution.
These studies show that pollution would also act negatively on our mental balance. Polluting particles, when integrated into the body, tend to generate or accentuate oxidative stress, which promotes the decrease in cognitive abilities and reduces memory and concentration capacity.
The adverse physiological effects caused by inhaling polluted air can be transmitted to our brain by neural signals, causing adverse emotional reactions. The most polluted places promote malaise and depression.
Air quality while driving: what about road professionals?
A study3 focused in particular on road professionals (couriers, truckers, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers, garbage collectors, etc.), breathing in the passenger compartment of their vehicle throughout their working day.
On average, professional drivers were exposed to 4.1 micrograms of black carbon per cubic meter of air while driving, or about four times more than at home. The highest rate of exposure to soot carbon particles (6.5 μg/m3) is observed for taxi drivers who spend more time in traffic jams or in narrow streets where air circulates less.
In 2020, a doctoral student completed her thesis4 on the impacts of ultrafine particles and soot carbon on the respiratory health of taxi drivers. She identified three major determinants of pollutant concentrations inside their cars: ambient factors (weather and pollution level outside); vehicle characteristics; and journey characteristics.
How to protect yourself from the dangers of pollution in the passenger compartment of your car?
- Whenever possible, avoid rush hour, traffic jams and tunnels
- Ventilate in the periphery
- Do not smoke inside the car
- Cut off the outside air supply in tunnels, traffic jams, or when you are behind a highly polluting vehicle
- Clean your vehicle thoroughly by regularly vacuuming the carpets and fabrics in the passenger compartment, the rear dashboard and the trunk
- Avoid sudden accelerations and decelerations
- Equip yourself with an air purifier designed for vehicles
The ionizer, soon to be essential in your vehicles
Most vehicles with an air conditioning system are equipped with a cabin filter. According to ASEF, there is no point in relying on this filter to effectively protect yourself from pollutants. This is all the more true during hot weather, and therefore in summer when vacation departures sometimes cause endless traffic jams, when your air conditioning system is running at full speed.
So, if the air purifiers that some manufacturers integrate into their models are not enough to protect your health, what solution can you adopt to purify the air you breathe in your car?
Ozone-free air ionization, a technology developed by TEQOYA, recreates indoors the principle of electrostatic depletion at work in nature. The format of the air purifier TEQOYA Nomad, specially adapted for cars, offers the same advantages as the models designed to purify the air in your home. In addition to its effectiveness on 99% of pollutants, it is discreet, light and perfectly silent, guaranteeing the comfort of passengers. The device is easily attached to the ventilation grille and plugs into the USB port of your vehicle.
This air purifier for the car has been tested and approved by the Carcept Prev foundation (Klesia Group), a mutual insurance company for road hauliers.
Note that it also has a stand and can therefore also be used in the office, when traveling, in a closet, a wardrobe, etc.
What about air pollution in other modes of transport?
Between 2008 and 2009, the Independent Regional Air Observatory in Midi-Pyrénées (Oramip) conducted a study2comparing exposure to pollutants according to the different modes of transport.
Motorists are the most exposed to pollutants. This is even more the case when traffic is congested. For example, if to complete a loop of a ring road with fluid traffic, we count about 30 minutes, with an average nitrogen dioxide level of 150 µg/m3, on a day of congested traffic, the duration of this same journey triples, and we measure an average carbon dioxide concentration twice as high.
The bus is the second most polluted mode of transport. With an average nitrogen dioxide level of 62 µg/m3, the bus, less caught in traffic jams than the car, subjects its passengers to less pollution.
The metro exposes its users to an extremely high average concentration of fine particles- 292 µg/m3 - 10 times higher than the WHO twenty-four-hour standard. Particle pollution is 5 times higher in the subway than in the car. On the other hand, the average carbon dioxide level remains relatively low, identical to that of cycling, i.e. 22 µg/m3. The environment is confined but the sources of gas emissions are in the ambient air outside.
It is on a bike that we breathe best.In the absence of a confined environment, pollutants are easily evacuated. The average concentration of pollutants can be high at times but it decreases as soon as we move away from the flow of traffic. Be careful to moderate your efforts and pedal at a moderate pace to avoid hyperventilation and excessive inhalation of pollutants.
Sources
- 1 - Assessment of exposure to air pollutants of motor vehicle drivers by implementing dynamic measurements in the vehicle cabin, Archives of occupational and environmental diseases, Volume 70, April 2009
- 2 - Air Quality in our daily travel, ATMO Midi-Pyrénées (ORAMIP), 2016 https://www.atmo-occitanie.org/sites/default/files/imports/pdf/Basse_Def_DP_etude_transport.pdf
- 3 - Study by King's College London presented at the international congress of the European Respiratory Society, 2019
- 4 - Mélissa Hachem. Exposure to ultrafine particles and soot carbon of taxi drivers: determinants of exposure and impact on respiratory health (PUF-TAXI Project). Human medicine and pathology. Paris Cité University; Lebanese University, 2020
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