The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
This pollution solution will get right up your nose
Tomé Morrissy-Swan, a regular commuter, has always been sniffy about breathing in toxins, so could a pair of plastic gadgets be the answer?
Air pollution surrounds us, and is difficult to combat. When one pollutant is quashed, another rises to prominence. The Clean Air Act 1956, for example, reduced smoke pollution from household fires in response to the Great Smog of 1952 – but the emphasis has now shifted to nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, which contributed to 47 UK towns and cities registering unsafe air pollution levels in 2018, according to the WHO.
The search for solutions is on. This year, for example, the Mayor of London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, a levy on older, more polluting vehicles, comes into place.
This may still not be enough to prevent some of the 40,000 premature deaths believed to be caused annually by pollution, because harmful pollutants are everywhere. “A lot has been attributed to road traffic, but there are other sources,” says Dr David Muir of Environmental Protection UK (EPUK). Up to 100 everyday items may release nefarious particles – and that’s just inside the home. These include ink cartridges, glue, cleaning products, shampoos, candles and wood-burning stoves.
Unlike chemical pollution (e.g. gases not found naturally or found in higher amounts than normal, such as the “probable carcinogen” formaldehyde), particulates are tiny solids or droplets. They range between PM10, coarse particulates that our nose hairs and throats can (sometimes) filter from penetrating deep into the body, and the finer PM2.5 – a diameter of about three per cent of a human hair. “These can go deeper,” says Adrien Lafond, CMO of Foobot, which provides indoor air quality monitors.
Muir explains that, once PM2.5s beat natural barriers, they can enter the bloodstream and cause chaos. “There are suggestions that particles have a role to play in heart attacks, strokes and even dementia.”
It’s scary stuff, and begs the question: how can we alleviate some of the pressures? In Asia, cotton masks are common, but do they work? “The effectiveness up till now hasn’t been brilliant,” Muir warns. A fabric mask, he says, will only filter out coarser particles. Better masks, by Totobobo and Respro for example, do have efficient filters and exhalation valves, though they’re still quite rare on our streets. Some hardcore cyclists sport them, but public-transport commuters are less keen, because no one wants to look like a Batman villain on the bus.
Pollution worries me. I’m always sneezing and coughing, and I always feel dirty after my commute. Despite living in a relatively green part of London, one that online checks show is better than average for the city, I work in a more noxious zone. So I was intrigued when I came across a new product designed literally to stop pollution getting up your nose.
O2 nose filters (£5.99 for a threepack on informcare.co.uk) are being marketed as “the latest weapon in the war against city pollution”. Two tiny buds connected by a little plastic wire, the filters are easily inserted inside the nostrils, and worn throughout the day; they’re not reusable. They are electrostatically charged – the material attracts particles so that they stick to it – and can apparently block out germs and viruses, which is potentially good news for hay fever sufferers and even snorers (this I cannot confirm).
CEO Stefan Viklund explains: “The filters stop particles down to PM2.5.
It is a technologically advanced product. The ability for the consumer to increase air intake while filtering away air pollutants and potential allergens is completely new.”
Thus I begin my day wearing tiny plastic buds in my nasal passages. They’re not overly intrusive, though the feeling is rather odd at first. I find myself breathing heavily through my mouth, which Lafond warns against, as our throats are less efficient filters.
It also feels (and sounds) like I have a mild cold. I am also conscious of walking round with a small piece of plastic visible between my nostrils – a colleague inquires about my weird new piercing. It takes some familiarisation, Viklund admits.
Yet my sense of smell feels more refined, which is not necessarily a good thing. The Tube absolutely reeks – I am practically retching. “It’s the first I’ve heard of an increased sense of smell,” Viklund retorts. It could be that, as the filters open up my nostrils to increased airflow, my smell receptors have opened up, too.
So do they work? An online image of the filters worn for eight hours in Shanghai shows clear buds that have turned various shades of black and brown; mine were largely unscathed, which (I think) is reassuring.
Would I keep wearing them? Yes, as soon as I can master the knack of breathing with my mouth shut.