Thailand to reduce the 50-micron of PM2.5 safety standard to 37.5 microns

[JimmyJ]

6 hours ago, nigelforbes said:

The pollution levels are very similar, all over the province, plus, the air is static. The wind current maps show there are no prevailing winds to influence air flow. Both those things strongly suggest the problem is the inversion layer, not a lack of control. https://www.windy.com/?18.139,100.596,8

The pollution levels are similar all over the CM province which you state suggests it is a product of the inversion layer.

 

Pollution levels are also similar all over the region - SEA -  where you are not stating it is caused by the inversion layer. 

Just a coincidence.

Edited February 3, 2023 by JimmyJ

[internationalism]

that "news" is from 14th July 2022.

 

"From June 1, 2023, the amount of PM2.5 in the general atmosphere must not exceed 37.5 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m3) in a 24-hour average in order to pass the safety standard.

The announcement of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry was published on July 9 in the Royal Gazette website. This is a significant improvement over the current standard of 50 μg/m3."

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40017734

[puck2]

17 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

Only in your dreams did I say that. What I said was, it strongly suggests. Read more carefully and brush up on your comprehension

 

it seems you don't want to recognize the real facts.

The problems is not the the "inversion layer", it's the origin of the pollution.

Following your logic, you would try to solve a health problem by curing the symptoms and NOT the origin of a health problem. As a doctor you would give a patient pills against feaver, although the feaver could be a life threatening disease.

To repeat it, the illness in this case is the POLLUTION, made by Thai people, and NOT the layer.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

6 hours ago, stoner said:

maybe in a couple years they will lower it to the WHO and world standard of 25.

 

I've often pointed out that Thailand has long operated with its own excessively high standard for what's considered unhealthy air -- 50 micrograms of PM2.5. The current U.S. 24-hour threshold for PM2.5 is 35 micrograms.

 

Thus, PM2.5 levels that would trigger air quality alerts in the U.S. may go relatively unnoticed by the Thai government and in the local news media here...as long as the daily levels remain below Thailand's current excessively high 50 micrograms standard.

 

For the U.S.:

"in September 2006, EPA revised the PM standards by lowering the level of the 24-hour PM_2.5 standard to 35 μg/m³"

 

https://www3.epa.gov/region1/airquality/pm-aq-standards.html

 

Now earlier this year:

 

"The Agency is proposing to retain the primary 24-hour PM_2.5 standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter, while taking comment on revising this level to as low as 25 micrograms per cubic meter."

 

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-strengthen-air-quality-standards-protect-public-harmful-effects-soot

 

The WHO's guidelines for 24 hour threshold average of PM2.5 appear to have a ultimate daily threshold goal of no more than 15 micrograms, and an interim goal of no more than 25 micrograms:

 

 

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345329/9789240034228-eng.pdf

 

 

[onthedarkside]

A series of reported argumentative and bickering posts have been removed.

[BritScot]

Come on Thailand use can do better! Bangkok 3rd worst polluted in the world, only 2 places to be the number one in the world....

Come on Thailand you can do it. Campaign for Thailand Number 1.

So sad you could actually cry. Greed has been the downfall of Thailand since the beginning of time. Thailand could have been a real paradise, just look at its geographical location. It could have been a Japan or a South Korea or a Singapore but no! A few families insure the people are never going to progress. Burning rubbish  waste, vehicles spewing thick black smoke (I still believe it is to do with the diesel sold because even a new diesel and you put your food down and a cloud of black smoke appears, if in the uk I do this in my Rav 4 which is now almost 8 years old and nothing... no black smoke).

[samuttodd]

It isn't just farmers burning their fields.  

 

It is a multitude of cook over fire type food stands, and open burning of garbage.

 

When we came through Nan to Bkk the other day,  people were burning the median of the hiway and the edges to get rid of brush and debris.  

 

 

Watch one of those roadside food stands as they fire up chicken on a stick and see the pall of smoke as it wafts into the air.     Now multiply that by the tens of thousands of people cooking that way each day.

 

 

[KhunLA]

4 hours ago, JimmyJ said:

KhunLA - I like those maps.

Which site are they from?

https://www.iqair.com/air-quality-map?lat=11.82098&lng=99.7841&zoomLevel=10

[samuttodd]

the sample area of the study doesn't make any difference. What matters is the particulate numbers per unit surveyed.

 

 

[nigelforbes]

A previous description of an inversion layer was incomplete and misleading plus questions were asked that went unanswered. For those who wish to understand, the following may help, it is a combination of slides material that I have added to for clarity. No discussion (from me), just clarification of an earlier exchange. Any further information can easily be obtained from the internet, there's lots of material out there on this subject:

 

NORMALLY - Air is hottest, closest to the ground and cools the further away it travels from the ground.

 

WHAT - Inversions are stable air masses where this condition is reversed and cooler air is near the earth's surface and warmer air is on top. The normal process of cooling resumes with distance from the top edge of the inversion layer

 

WHY - With an inversion, air near the ground cools more quickly than air aloft. This is most likely when the sky is clear and the wind is light/calm. Cooling will occur the most readily in low places (such as valleys sheltered from the wind). Chinag Mai is a basin surrounded by mountains.

 

WHEN - This often happens in the late afternoon/early evening (before sunset) and lingers into the next morning (after sunrise) for a few hours until the suns rays heat the air and the ground, allowing it to rise.

 

Since warm air rises, air under the inversion cannot escape because it is cooler than farther aloft. Smoke and pollution get trapped.

 

THE SIGNS - Clear skies, no clouds. Calm wind, less than 3 mph. Closer to sunrise or sunset. Dew present. Horizontal smoke patterns. Ground fog in low lying areas.

 

 https://www.weather.gov/media/lzk/inversion101.pdf

[Sydebolle]

What a load of cro............!  Last night's reading hit 171 and was red for quite a few days already. 

Thailand is Number One worldwide to flatly ignore laws, rules and regulations. There is a financial benefit in burning all those sugar cane and corn fields and that's where the problem lies. Check with the huge feed mils and chicken breeders. 

If those clowns in the government would be anything like a little bit more serious, they would roam ad hoc areas with helicopters and promptly fine the land owner with stiff fines.
The culprit has no money to pay the five, if not six digit fine? Well, then auction off the land title deed, deviate the fine from the auction result and ......... yes, Bob's your uncle.

You will have to sacrifice some and make it really public on TV and in the media. You would be surprised, how fast all this ends with a screeching halt. 

Fact is, that millions in the Northeast and North are coughing, having lung and respiratory diseases, everybody from patient via nurses to doctors know the source and the remedy and still nobody takes action. 

The same people who are ultimately responsible for all this hazardous situation are also those who advocated to ban plastic bag in a very well known franchise chain of convenience stores ..... 

[samuttodd]

15 hours ago, nigelforbes said:

I don't know what enforcement there is in other parts of the country but here in the North where we are, we are very strictly forbidden to burn garden waste etc from mid. February onwards, to do so risks a very real risk of a visit from the Tessaban and a fine. 

We have a bunch of seafood processing plants here in Samut Sakhon.   Along side of the plants,  Mountains of styrofoam containers accumulate throughout the month (s)   only to be burned spewing black clouds of toxic smoke into the air.    ONCE IN A WHILE,  YOU WILL SEE A BLACK PLUMe erupt from the horizon,  and it is usually the styrofoam piles being torched.

 

 

 

[rudi49jr]

“Thailand to reduce the 50-micron of PM2.5 safety standard to 37.5 microns.”

 

They can reduce it to 10 or increase it to 100, it’s not going to change the air pollution one bit. Just one more token measure to look like they’re actually doing something. 
 

This is the air pollution index of today. See all the red and purple signs? That means the air is bad, very bad or extremely bad. And this is just the beginning of the burning season, just wait until April.

 

 

[Venom]

20 hours ago, webfact said:

from June 1st, with the hope that this will help the Pollution Control Department manage air pollution with increased efficiency, according to PCD Director-General Pinsak Suraswadi.

Coincidentally, June is the end of burning season. ????

[Ratchsima]

Artificial rain is in working and will remain for next 3 days. That is why the pm2.5 level is dropping to yellow/green level in Bangkok ,Chiang Mai , Pattaya and nation wide. But after 3 days what is next?

Edited February 5, 2023 by Ratchsima

[vandeventer]

On 2/3/2023 at 6:03 AM, Tarteso said:

What control, morons ?

Is unhealthyThailand starting to look like China? That's why so many die there from Covid.