How can we use technology to empower citizens to engage and take action to improve air quality? We speak to Matt Mehalik, Executive Director for The Breathe Project and adjunct faculty at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University about solving for air pollution using a suite of technology tools in partnership with an engaged community.

Blocks(TM) in this podcast:

Hurricanes to Air Pollution

There are so many Chemical plants that exist in the Houston area. They're very active. As hurricane Harvey did such damage in Houston and the aftermath of documenting how all those plants released huge amounts of pollution into the air because their operations were disrupted by a hurricane. http://www.solvecast.com/articles/detail/15273-civilian-scientists-air-quality-tech-innovation-with-matt-mehalik [more]

Manufacturing Industry to Air Pollution

And so we can zero in on the need to regulate and enforce what happens with a few key facilities. Most of them are old steelmaking facilities and Coke making facilities...It has technology that dates back to the 1970s. So it's 50 years old and the company hasn't been investing in, improving it. In fact, what US Steel has done over this past year is take the money that it's made and invested in new facilities in Arkansas and Alabama, and not doing anything to repair the problems in Southwestern, Pennsylvania, which is where that company started, by the way. http://www.solvecast.com/articles/detail/15273-civilian-scientists-air-quality-tech-innovation-with-matt-mehalik [more]

Communication to Air Pollution

So for decades, a lot of these communities have been ignored despite and during truly awful air quality conditions with high incidents of families being disrupted by disease directly attributable to air emissions. So it's at its core it's an environmental justice issue. The many of these communities are finding their voice by creating a space where people can feel like they can voice their concerns, participate by recording. http://www.solvecast.com/articles/detail/15273-civilian-scientists-air-quality-tech-innovation-with-matt-mehalik #50 #air-pollution [more]

Smartphones to Air Pollution

And on any given day, the map, we can map out where the bad smells are flowing through the atmosphere around Pittsburgh. And those data points correlate with what we see on monitors. And so it helps us detect, so human smell is very sensitive. And the It's a good monitoring technique too, to tune into when something smells bad. And it's one data point that can be combined with what the monitors are showing, what the cameras were showing. We've seen many incidents where some people in a community will smell something. They'll report it on Twitter and recorded on the smell Pittsburgh app that will prompt us to go and look at cameras. And lo and behold, many times we see. Two hours before that... [more]

Camera to Air Pollution

One of the challenges of air quality work is that unless you see visible pollution, smoke plumes coming out and settling in over communities, which unfortunately continues to happen in

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