We are very happy to announce that the Air Quality Collective along with our colleagues at the University of Canterbury have been awarded $415,000 by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Strategic Catalyst fund for a project called “Supporting...
Portable air cleaners – by which I mean domestic appliances that use a fan to pass air over a HEPA filter and are sometimes referred to as PACs – often claim to remove 99.9% of bad stuff (viruses, smoke, dust) from the air. If that were true, why are we all not using...
The recently released IQAir report (2024 IQAir World Air Quality Report | IQAir,) has highlighted New Zealand as one of the few countries meeting WHO air quality standards. However, this paints an incomplete picture. Air pollution remains one of the greatest...
-What's the Issue? The air in your home can be contaminated from both outside and within. It may be smoke from wood-fires, rural burning, or bushfires. It might be dust or chemicals from industry, or particulates from trucks. But it could also be viruses, excess...
Through 2025 The Air Quality Collective is working with Otago Regional Council to find out more about the contribution of open burning to smoke in the air in the Alexandra-Clyde Basin. What’s the issue? During winter, smoke from home heating has long been known to...
Last week, NZ Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins announced “the largest reset of NZ Science sector in more than 30 years”, including the merging of 8 Crown Research Institutes into three “Public Research Organisations”. Yet New Zealand still...
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the continuing story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations...
As the world faces the challenge of maintaining healthy indoor environments in an era of pandemics and climate change, World Ventil8 Day 2024 is set to spotlight the critical role of ventilation in enhancing health and wellbeing. This year’s theme “Enabling Action”...
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the continuing story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations...
The Ministry for the Environment and StatsNZ released Our Air 2024, an update on the state of the air in Aotearoa/New Zealand's. This is a very important document, and we can't pass the opportunity to give our perspective on its content and what it may mean for air...
To create a map of air quality across a town or city you used to have spend significant resources setting up and maintaining a sparse air quality monitoring network and then apply uncertain models which rely on emissions data you don’t usually have. But gone are the...
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations where our...
Current climate models misrepresent cloud formation over the Southern Ocean causing mismatches between models and satellite observations. These errors are important because too much sunlight reaches the ocean surface in simulations, leading to overestimates of ocean...
The degree to which road traffic pollutes urban air varies hugely, depending how much traffic is nearby. We’ve been mapping traffic pollution in detail across all New Zealand’s towns and cities over the last decade. In doing so we’ve been refining the methods to...
In February 2023 floods following Cyclone Gabrielle dumped 20 million tonnes of silt across 4 productive farming valleys in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay. As recovery operations disturbed the silt dense clouds of dust posed a new hazard that lingered for months after the...
When it became clear that New Zealand’s successful elimination strategy was to be replaced with one of mitigation, it also became clear that we needed to understand the ventilation practices in our indoor spaces. As part of the Ministry of Health fund to improve...
Air pollution is one of those things, like weather and climate, that because it affects everyone we all have an opinion about it. This makes it an ideal area for "citizen" and "traditional" scientists to collaborate and work towards improving our lives. However, air...
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the status quo in a number of ways. From helping the world realize that you can run scientific conferences that are accessible for people who cannot (or will not) travel, to rising the very thorny question of "should kids be...
Chasing the dream of accurate and reliable low cost sensors in air qualityFor quite a few years now, there are a number of projects around consumer level (as opposed to research grade) air quality sensors. (Air Quality Egg, Speck, Dustduino, Air Beam and our own...
Using solid fuel Use of solid fuel, mostly wood but also coal, particularly in some South Island towns, is a major source of night-time airborne pollution in many places in New Zealand. On cold, still winter nights dispersion is poor and emissions from domestic...
So what is air pollution? Pollution is bad. The word ‘pollution’ conjures up images of something dark, something menacing, something nasty that turns up where it shouldn’t. The notion of something clean and pure being invaded by something repulsive or distasteful that...
Many teachers know that period 3 brain fog, when the children in front of them slump their shoulders and everything seems harder. It could be stale air. Without good ventilation contaminants can build up, including other people’s breath. And that breath could contain...
WestConnex: Using monitoring data to understand the impact of new road tunnels on local air quality Major road tunnels are designed to meet consent conditions that minimize their impact on local air quality. But how can communities be assured they are meeting these...
Community Air Action: Air quality solutions for homes and communities, and the means to evaluate them Putting another log on the fire keeps many New Zealanders warm on winter nights. But the smoke it creates pollutes many of our towns, causing regular breaches of...
Clearing The Air: Helping managers of small businesses and community facilities to improve ventilation Gyms, churches, clinics, daycares, libraries. They all need to ensure safe and healthy air for staff, customers and visitors. But how? Many smaller buildings don’t...