Air & Water Quality

 Did you know you consume 15,000 liters of air every day?  That is more than three times the amount of food and beverage consumed in a day.  It is a vital element for survival, and we can not escape it.  So clean air is more important than ever. 

What do you think of when you think of air quality?  Most of us probably attribute poor air quality to local factory output, car fumes, tobacco smoke, and residential carbon monoxide.  But it's so much more than these examples.  Candles, stoves, and fireplaces are the most common indoor air pollutants. 

We can similarly evaluate water.  While there have been drastic improvements in water treatment over the last century, we find that the treatment systems themselves are a contamination source.  According to the WELL Standard, the added chlorine kills specific organisms, making the water healthier to consume. Yet, the byproduct of certain chemicals leads to harmful health risks such as cancer.

So, what about these health risks?  Did you know that poor air quality affects not only your lungs but also your brain?  It also affects your heart and every other organ in your body.  Same assessment can be applied to water.  Water makes up nearly two-thirds of the human body.  It also affects every part of the human body.  Pollution has no boundaries.  

As designers, would it not make sense to address these challenges, not in the singular, but as a collective approach?  It is a case of not addressing the illness but addressing the environment, similar to the whole health approach.  Communitive diseases are rarely about a single cause.   According to Paul Pholero's Ted Talk, "How to reduce poverty? Fix homes," we learn about a village in Nepal where his team installed running toilets where none existed.  At one point, a family invited him into their home.  Conditions were terrible, and breathing was difficult in the house.  Why?  Because the family was using their only fuel source, green timber, for cooking.  Poor ventilation trapped the air inside, causing illness within the family.  Mark's team could have addressed the toilet and left, but that would only solve one problem.  They needed to solve for a better fuel source, which they did.  They developed a system of removing human and animal waste, placing in a chamber, and extract biogas.  This biogas gave the family several hours of clean cooking fuel.

While organizations like the World Health Organization and other governing bodies are making strides towards better health globally, we look to them for more than just the rules or suggestions to follow. There is more that can and should be done in support of global health.  We must push ourselves and our clients to do better, go above and beyond any "requirement."  We must commit 100%.  Future generations and our planet are counting on it.