Australias Air Quality essays

Australias Air Quality essays Australians consistently rank air pollution as a major environmental concern. The state of our air is an important factor in the quality of life of Australian cities. It affects the health of the community and directly influences the sustainability of our lifestyles and production methods. It is generally recognised that Australians spend 90% or more of their time indoors. Despite this, little research has been done on the quality of air in our homes, schools, recreational buildings, restaurants, public buildings, offices, or inside cars. Poor indoor air quality can result in significant adverse impacts on our health and environment. These impacts carry a significant cost to the economy. The CSIRO estimates that the cost of poor indoor air quality in Australia may be as high as $12 billion per year. In recent years, relative risk studies performed by the US EPA and its Science Advisory Board have consistently ranked indoor air pollution among the top five environmental risks to public health. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) defines indoor air as air within a building occupied for at least one hour by people of varying states of health. This can include the office, classroom, transport facility, shopping center, hospital and home. Indoor air quality can be defined as the whole of attributes of indoor air that affect a person's health and well being. A major concern with respect to indoor air quality is the use of gas cookers and unflued gas heaters. These two sources can often contribute a large percentage of the pollutants found in domestic buildings. Increasingly, as buildings have become better sealed from the external environment, pollutants being released from indoor sources are being found at higher concentrations. As a result of studies implicating unflued gas heaters in indoor air quality issues, unflued gas heaters are being...