Is it safe to breathe?

[UdonExpat]

The air pollution for the past several days has been quite visible. My eyes itch and blue skies are gone.

My smart phone app called AirVisual has rated the air in Udon as "unhealthy" or "unhealthy for sensitive groups" for more than a week. If air quality is of interest to you I recommend using this app to help make decisions about going out and about. I have tended to stay in where my HEPA air filter provides a bit cleaner breathing.

https://isaanrecord.com/2019/09/23/swee ... 7Gj8R8_ngU

[glalt]

The sad thing about burning sugar cane is that it is so simple to stop. The government doesn't have to monitor the farmers. All the government has to do is prohibit the sugar mills from buying burnt sugar cane. There are not that many sugar mills to monitor. When the farmers know they are not able to market their burnt sugar cane, the burning would quickly stop.

[laksnrub]

2 weeks ago it was 45pm

[AlexO]

The sad thing about burning sugar cane is that it is so simple to stop. The government doesn't have to monitor the farmers. All the government has to do is prohibit the sugar mills from buying burnt sugar cane. There are not that many sugar mills to monitor. When the farmers know they are not able to market their burnt sugar cane, the burning would quickly stop.

Yes its a big problem but how else can the sugar cane growers harvest the fields if they don't burn down the undergrowth. Unless someone can come up with a non toxic, cheap chemical solution then the farmers will continue as they always have by burning before cutting. Anything else increases their costs and even just now, they barely cover their input costs. Going to remain a problem for along time to come.

[parrot]

I looked at that website, but the monitors were in Khonkaen, Korat, and Loei. I asked a Chamber of Commerce friend if Udon had its own monitor. He said, not yet.

[Shado]

This is the one I check:

https://www.airvisual.com/thailand/chan ... udon-thani

[mickojak]

Safer to breathe than not breathe.

[yartims]

read uninhabitable earth and air quality will get worse anyway due to methane escaping in siberia and become unbreathable

[kopkei]

yep stop breath, so you do not have to worry about anything anymore....(what you eat ,drink...enc)
some people are so busy all their life worrying about almost everything, they forget to enjoy to live ...
and also die anyway ,as no one escapes life... alive ....

[Tartempion]

here in the village 40 clicks East of Udon my Unit-T pm 2.5 meter shows 30 to 35, not too bad.
Get yourself a Xiamomi Air purifier 2S on Lazada at 4k baht before the haze when price will up to 6-7k
Works a wonder.
Both myself and the little one had bronchitis last January from the haze.
That's when I bought that air purifier.
The haze kills people, respiratory problems: children and elderly are sensible.

[tamada]

Good subject and informative article from the OP, thanks.

In that article, the Khon Kaen guy claims, "A full-fledged air quality monitoring station costs at least 10 million baht (about $327,000 USD) and annual maintenance cost stand at several hundred-thousand baht, according to Virunphop. Mobile units come with a cheaper price tag."

Until Shado's excellent post with a link to airvisual, I always used the sparse data from https://aqicn.org/city/thailand/ and extrapolated a value between Vientiane and Khon Kaen as the two nearest stations.

But airvisual seems to have the ability to display localized data with the source listed as Sansiri, the property developer. The app gives the location as The Base, their condo on Watthanuwong. Maybe they have the 10 million baht piece of kit that the government can't afford?

For 295 bucks, you can contribute data to their network.

[glalt]

The sad thing about burning sugar cane is that it is so simple to stop. The government doesn't have to monitor the farmers. All the government has to do is prohibit the sugar mills from buying burnt sugar cane. There are not that many sugar mills to monitor. When the farmers know they are not able to market their burnt sugar cane, the burning would quickly stop.

Yes its a big problem but how else can the sugar cane growers harvest the fields if they don't burn down the undergrowth. Unless someone can come up with a non toxic, cheap chemical solution then the farmers will continue as they always have by burning before cutting. Anything else increases their costs and even just now, they barely cover their input costs. Going to remain a problem for along time to come.

My wife farms what would be considered a fairly large farm compared average Thai farm sizes. The average family farm is about 10 rai. She has 65 rai. Her largest crop is sugar cane. She doesn't burn any of it. The cane cutters don't like to cut burnt cane because of the black ash. The cane tops and leaves left on the ground provide a barrier against weeds besides being better for the ground.

[DuiDui49]

The sad thing about burning sugar cane is that it is so simple to stop. The government doesn't have to monitor the farmers. All the government has to do is prohibit the sugar mills from buying burnt sugar cane. There are not that many sugar mills to monitor. When the farmers know they are not able to market their burnt sugar cane, the burning would quickly stop.

Yes its a big problem but how else can the sugar cane growers harvest the fields if they don't burn down the undergrowth. Unless someone can come up with a non toxic, cheap chemical solution then the farmers will continue as they always have by burning before cutting. Anything else increases their costs and even just now, they barely cover their input costs. Going to remain a problem for along time to come.

My wife farms what would be considered a fairly large farm compared average Thai farm sizes. The average family farm is about 10 rai. She has 65 rai. Her largest crop is sugar cane. She doesn't burn any of it. The cane cutters don't like to cut burnt cane because of the black ash. The cane tops and leaves left on the ground provide a barrier against weeds besides being better for the ground.

Give her a big hug from me..And a big thank you for doing what she is doing...NO BURNING..

[parrot]

We were at a temple in Nongbualamphu this morning (วัดป่ากระแต่) and could clearly see the next mountain range to the west.....20km away.
On the subject of sugar cane burning......returning from Bangkok one evening this past January, I was shocked at the number of fields that were being burning. Clear as day (in the nighttime). No doubt there was lots of ensuing smoke and embers.

[FrazeeDK]

funny how the air quality website can show us active burning yet nobody seems to be able to stop it.. https://www.airvisual.com/air-quality-m ... omLevel=10

[parrot]

It's been about 10 years since I saw my first rice harvester in action.....just one....then another, and now more common. Likewise, sugar cane harvesters......just a few in action near where we live, but at least in one recent case.....near Nongwahsaw, the fields were harvested without burning and left completely clean of debris.
I read recently where the mills were offering pricing incentives for sugar cane that hadn't been burnt. Will this will make a difference in our lifetimes?
Also, when we moved to our village, dinosaurs still roamed, and most all villagers burnt their trash......plastic and all. Then the municipality began collecting garbage on a regular basis. I occasionally see a villager burning some leaves.....but the trash burning seems to have been extinguished......maybe not 100%, but it's getting there.

[Khun Paul]

Is the AIR safe to breathe, well a simple answer would be TRY NOT BREATHING, after a short while that question about safety will be irrelevant !

[FrazeeDK]

172 right now.. freakin' terrible. Got to hide indoors with the air cleaner on high...

[ladda3904]

I grew up in Steel country. We thought it was supposed to be hazy all the time.

[saint]

i survived the pea soupers in London as a kid , so im sure i will survive Udons little haze .