Chiang Mai Air Quality and Pollution

[Bill97]

42 minutes ago, dcnx said:

 

I don’t care about trash collection, that’s not causing me to wear a mask today unless the trash is on fire. 

Really enlightened.  If they do not collect the trash they will burn it someday.

[cerox]

The good thing is with colder weather you can wear a mask without sweating too much around your mouth ????

 

There is no such thing as "burning season". Checking the AQI and using air purifiers, masks is a part of daily life.

[Forza2002]

250 here in San Kamphaeng Sat 08:15.... The air is very dark and you can smell the burning. Time to migrate south fr the winter, lol...

 

 

 

[Forza2002]

The Thais wonder why there are less tourists coming to Chiang Mai. Given the air quality and with social media widely available these days informing everybody it's hardly surprising. The only tourists that will tolerate the polluted air are the Chinese as it's normal for them. ???? 

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Forza2002

[les1]

It's 8:30 am here in Chiang Mai Dec. 28th with a blanket of smoke covering Doi Suthep. This City has to wake up otherwise no one will be visiting pollution level is 159. I thought last year was bad starting in February. Some one needs to take this issue seriously. 

[cerox]

No one will take it seriously.

It just does not matter. Look outside. Whom of the local population do you see wearing a mask? No ones cares. I am talking about the majority, not some 5 Thai people you see in one week wearing a mask.

You can take your precautions with masks and purifiers indoors. In the end we all have to adapt our lifestyle during the time we are in Chiang Mai.

[lannarebirth]

On 12/19/2019 at 1:10 AM, Sparkles said:

Like many issues in this country education is the key and that takes generations to overcome the problems be it litter , on road behaviour ,mounting debt etc. We don't hear of many positive messages from Government to help people understand that they are poisoning themselves and their families just threats of fines which are never forthcoming. Going to take decades

Education is good, having consequences works better though.

 

[sfokevin]

Today we look like a suburb of China... 

(Note we also outrank them...)

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by sfokevin

[cnxnicho]

Took the dog for her daily walk at 7 am in the San Sai area, you could smell and taste the smoke, she wasn't too keen on the mask !!

[Capacitor]

3rd straight winter in Chiang Mai and this December has been ridiculously bad. I don't recall a single day in February last year when the mountain vanished behind an impenetrable veil of smoke like today.

 

Obviously it can't be vehicle emissions; is there a fire map or other means to see where the smoke is coming from? Not that it will change anything, but at least to have an idea of what's happening and why.

 

Amazingly, very few people wear masks, Thai and foreigner included. Probably keep their windows wide open as well throughout the day and night.

 

Yesterday evening, biking to meet a friend in Chiang Mai, an old woman tended the fire outside her home, feeding it leaves, plastic, everything. I was astonished, why?? Just throw the trash in the myriad plastic trash cans nearby and NEVER burn anything in the city; it's utterly pointless.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Capacitor

[kevin612]

Bangkok is pretty bad, I often wear a mask.

[GalaxyMan]

15 hours ago, dcnx said:

They are always burning near us. It’s usually impossible to open the windows and enjoy clean air when we have it. The strong smell of burning plastic comes right in the moment we do. We’ve had to add extra seals to our doors and windows to stop it from coming in even when they are closed. 

That's something that really sucks. Samui has some of the cleanest air in the country, but the neighbors insist on burning their trash instead of putting it out on the street to be picked up. They don't (or can't afford) to pay for the mandatory black plastic trash bags that have to be used to put it out on the street. The smell of burning plastic is nauseating.

[cerox]

I am a fan of that purple colour that we get at above 200, but now only 2 stations have that colour, so the map does not look so beautiful 5555

Tomorrow - you can do it.

[jackdd]

AQI of 205 today at my house

But at least the police setup a big checkpoint and is stopping Motorbike riders without helmet

[Nakmuay887]

the air is the worst I have ever seen it here up north. Although it seems most of the burning I am seeing going on is coming from Myanmar and spreading this way. It's been pretty unbearable at times these last two weeks

[canopy]

47 minutes ago, Capacitor said:

an old woman tended the fire outside her home, feeding it leaves, plastic, everything. I was astonished, why??

I am afraid the answer is extremely simple: she enjoys burning things just like everyone else. In my area they have successfully fought off trash pickup the government wants them to have. It's because they love their enjoyable daily burning rituals and never mind the fumes. Another surprising thing is educating them simply angers them. They feel it is their right to burn their plastic, fields, forest, everything they want. Anyone that complains must be a problem person for bringing it up trying to show them up and make them look bad. They simply have no interest at all in building a healthy world around them and will actually resist such an peculiar notion. To them the world is a free for all to be exploited, treating it with care and respect would force them to think, not get their full share, and make them feel awkward. Once you understand how they think it explains all the smoke from millions of fires blanketing the north. Any problems like this that occur they will just make up a scapegoat on the spot that leaves them totally blameless and think all these things are an inevitable part of life and best ignored and importantly to them it has nothing to do with their actions. They simply don't think like you or I.

 

Another thing. It may not be intuitive, but unfortunately closing the windows and doors is not effective against the dangerous PM2.5 particles. Check with an air quality monitor in and out and you can see the difference may none to very insignificant even if you keep it closed up for long periods of time. Air purifiers are really the only option. Also masks must be of high quality to filter out PM2.5. The regular cheap cloth masks the government hands out and builders wear are ineffective.

 

[OneZero]

49 minutes ago, Nakmuay887 said:

the air is the worst I have ever seen it here up north. Although it seems most of the burning I am seeing going on is coming from Myanmar and spreading this way. It's been pretty unbearable at times these last two weeks

 

Hey, I guess the bad air must be about over with already.  Folkguitar states adamantly that bad air in CM only lasts for 2-3 weeks, & if some folks are troubled by the air beyond that length of time they are just complainers that don't understand the true situation.

[Samuel Smith]

59 minutes ago, Nakmuay887 said:

the air is the worst I have ever seen it here up north. Although it seems most of the burning I am seeing going on is coming from Myanmar and spreading this way. It's been pretty unbearable at times these last two weeks

The air is cleaner, between Chiang Mai & Burmese border.  Try some different BS

 

[4MyEgo]

17 hours ago, jackdd said:

They have been burning since a week or two already, but only at night, every morning i could smell the smoke and according to my PM2.5 meter the AQI was 170+, but over the day this cleared up and the air was ok.

Today they have been burning all day, so the AQI was like this all day long. Maybe the police is in new year holiday now, so they are not afraid even a little bit?

We are about 15km-20km away from the towns that the IQAir stations/towers, call them what you like are and both were at 152, with the PM2.5 levels being at around 56.2ug/m3 however as of late with the help of a TVF poster TallGuyJohninBKK advising me to get a second SNDWAY PM2.5 detector as I was too far away from these reading and I did, while the detector only has the PM2.5 reading, it took me a little while to get my head around it, but the reading outside this morning was 20ug/m3 which is a heck of a lot better than the 56ug/m3 reading of both towns in opposite directions.

 

As for the police, they never give a rats a$$ around here, just take a drive down the road for 15 kilometres and you will see the flames every couple of hundred metres, and just this morning my wife yelled out close the windows and I knew something was up, yep Yi next door wanted to burn her leaves, and what a smoke fire it was, the Indians would have probably seen the smoke from far away ????

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by 4MyEgo

[neeray]

Leadership and enforcement is the key to solving this issue.

But sadly, Thailand lacks in both from the top down.

[4MyEgo]

16 hours ago, dcnx said:

It’s usually impossible to open the windows and enjoy clean air when we have it.

I used to do just that, open doors and windows under the false premise that I would enjoy clean air coming in, now with the help of my little (new) friends, the SNDWAY PM2.5 detectors, one inside and one outside, I can make a judgement call, i.e. if the particulate matter PM is 35ug/m3 or under I will open the place up, particularly if there is no smell of smoke, although the reading should be 12ug/m3 or less for the air to be considered at a good level, or 12.1ug/m3 to 35.4ug/m3 to be considered to be in the moderate range, over that the place is locked up.

 

The air purifier I also purchased does a great job in clearing the PM2.5 with it's Hepa filtration, for example the other morning it was over 50ug/m3 inside, "unhealthy" and I turned it on and it brought the level down to 9ug/m3, and we can certainly smell the difference in the air quality.

 

The above said, I don't like living in a bubble, e.g. 90% of the world is polluted, noting that Thailand is up there, but not as bad as India, China and the likes as I have read, but when I look at what the reading is back in my home country, I say to myself, what were you thinking making the move and why did you miss such an important part, i.e. south-east Asia is so polluted and these clowns in the government have no real concept on how to tackle the problem, except by saying spray water into the air or don't burn incense, I must have been delusional to think that the country air here would be good for me.

 

The above said, if it gets worse and by me monitoring it and trying preventative measures, like having an air purifier, detectors, N95 masks, and that fails, then plan B has to come into play, bye bye Thailand as my health is more important than allowing this smoke from lawless people burning their rice and sugarcane fields at night while no one does anything about it.

  ????

Edited December 28, 2019 by 4MyEgo

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

CM has lovely shades of red and purple this morning:

 

[Trujillo]

Why complain so much about the pretty air color? 

[4MyEgo]

1 minute ago, Trujillo said:

Why complain so much about the pretty air color? 

[Forza2002]

[Trujillo]

Now or last April, when the air had a lot more body, I never felt any different physically. No different from any other time, anywhere else. It's really just a visual thing. If you didn't see well, you'd never notice. 

 

Could this be Darwinism at work here in CM? If you have a weak constitution, perhaps you will be driven out, leaving the splendors of the city and environs to the strong, like me. 

 

>..<

[Bassosa]

34 minutes ago, Samuel Smith said:

The air is cleaner, between Chiang Mai & Burmese border.  Try some different BS

 

This is what the Thai powers that be want you to think: it's smoke from neighbouring countries.

Unfortunately, some gullible individuals actually fall for that nonsense. It will only lead to even more complacency when it comes to tackling the issue.

Shame.

[Forza2002]

Dec 2019 worse than Dec 2018.... Doesn't bode well for the coming months...

[Bassosa]

20 minutes ago, Bassosa said:

This is what the Thai powers that be want you to think: it's smoke from neighbouring countries.

Unfortunately, some gullible individuals actually fall for that nonsense. It will only lead to even more complacency when it comes to tackling the issue. So please stop perpetuating that myth. Thanks.

 

 

[bubba]

So I see that Chiang Mai has already made it in to the world's top ten worst cities for air quality:

 

Chiang Mai is currently at #9

 

Bangkok is at #34.

 

Air quality and pollution city ranking