Episode 57DHWU  June 20 2025  Votes by the RAWSEP editor in the PurpleAir Giveaway Contest

Votes by the RAWSEP editor in the PurpleAir Contest which will give away PurpleAir monitors   The editor of RAWSEP made three choices in the voting     43 people or organizations applied  

Choice 1 to receive free PurpleAir monitors    Why?  This entry in the contest is specifically an organization against indoor residential wood burning    Using data to raise awareness of the dangers of wood smoke could set a precedent for other community activists looking to protect the environment on a micro level in their own communities       Excerpts edited by RAWSEP for brevity and clarity and relationship to Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501c3 nonprofit organization    What the Contestant said about the entry     I am an individual who is building up a community group to combat wood burning in our hamlet       My organization includes other individuals and possibly will include businesses who are like minded against both winter heating wood burning as well as indiscriminate summer fire pit wood burning    I have suffered two winter seasons now and others who we hope to bring forward are suffering too because of a few inconsiderate folks in our densely packed hamlet that choose to pollute the air with their wood burning showing no concern for those on the other end of the chimney or downwind from the fire pit    We want to have a data driven approach to regulation of wood burning in our community and Purple Air data combined with wind data from our home weather stations and pictures and video of chimney and fire pit smoke will make that possible       The project will raise community awareness of the importance of air quality for health and show definitively with hard data when the air is best and when it is suffering    Adding more sensors to gather data on wood burning is very important to me because my health suffers every time my house fills with smoke at the hands of the neighbors burning wood    Those others I have been sharing with also are intrigued by the unique ability of using this data to make our case to the local government about the need for regulation    We agree that we can use this proof to get the local government to consider ordinances to regulate wood burning in the hamlet proper    Just having a bunch of us show up at town meetings saying we are waking up choking on smoke is one thing but being able to prove that for instance at 114 AM on Wednesday there was a spike of 174 on the AQI and for 15 minutes it was in the red and purple lends immense credibility to our arguments and might help us ban wood burning altogether among our densely placed houses    This undertaking of using AQI sensor data to raise awareness of the dangers of wood smoke as documented on the EPA website Health and Environmental Effects of Particulate Matter PM   US EPA could set a precedent for other community activists looking to protect the environment on a micro level in their own communities    Combining the Purple Air AQI 2 point 5 numbers with data from our home weather stations that log wind speed and direction will allow us to pinpoint those polluting the air now and later if we are fortunate enough with the help of AQI data proof to get regulations outlawing burning in close proximity we can use the gathered data to enforce the regulations       I personally love my Zen I have owned the last 3 months with its bright color coded lighting that gives instant feedback on air quality and it surely is great advertising for Purple Air to all driving by but as the most expensive sensor I would not expect you to want to give any as donations    For the project I think any of the outdoor models would be fine preferably the ones that allow SD logging too so we can get at the data for building up reports for our outreach    If you could donate 3 sensors now that    would be a big start and really put our town on the map for all to see and would likely lead to people purchasing sensors for their properties too  

Choice 2 to receive free PurpleAir monitors  Where? Arkansas  Why? Unnecessary burning of biomass in agricultural fields affecting air quality in nearby communities    Excerpts edited by RAWSEP for brevity and clarity and relationship to Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501c3 nonprofit organization    What the Contestant said about the entry       What type of organization best describes you?    A group of individuals       Describe your organization       We are a group of individuals in our community who are increasingly concerned about the pollution in our area rural Arkansas    Describe your project       The area we live in is a pollution monitor desert    We have a lot of agriculture that is using practices that affect many communities mainly burning of the fields    This method is not used in other areas as heavily as it is here    Doctors in our community have written letters and pleaded with the state to make changes but are continually met with resistance    One of the things we would like to do is to show the pollution levels around our community to inform and support the data    Our local hospitals have seasonal employees to cover the influx of patients in the fall when this burning occurs    We would like to add data to support that       Which PurpleAir models are you interested in and how many would you want for your project?    I would like to start with 5 6 PurpleAir Classic Plus Monitors with power supplies    Hopefully we can use these to get more traction  

Choice 3 to receive free PurpleAir monitors    Where? Kenya  Why? One intention is to distribute PurpleAir Touch in consenting volunteer households to document the level of air pollution from biomass wood burning as a domestic energy source and to document its health impacts on women and children      RAWSEP Note    The organization has a second aim of documenting air pollution from traffic but for brevity only the part about domestic burning air pollution is included in this podcast      Excerpts edited by RAWSEP for brevity and clarity and relationship to Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501c3 nonprofit organization    What the Contestant said about the entry       What type of organization best describes you?    Community based organization non profit organization    Describe your organization       The Demography Project is an independent youth led non profit organization that leverages civic technology citizen science collective action and grassroots journalism towards amplifying community voices and enhancing citizen capacity to participate in advancing accountable governance participatory democracy and environmental conservation       It is registered in Kenya as a community based organization    Our flagship project is called Infrastracker portmanteau for infrastructure and tracker available on infrastracker   demographyproject dot org     It is a public domain air quality and public infrastructure monitoring project that leverages evidence based citizen science and practical community engagement for sustainable atmospheric resource responsibility in Kenya       As these communities and households are also at risk of degraded air quality due to domestic use of biomass for cooking and heating due to prevailing poverty rates the Infrastracker project seeks to bridge access to informed and actionable insights on ambient air quality for reduced exposure to outdoor and indoor particulate matter emissions       Through Infrastracker we are signatories to and valuable members of global and local climate action movements and coalitions including the Environmental Protection Agency EPA Air Quality Flag Program Africa Civic Tech Network Citizen Science Africa Association Clean Air Catalyst Climate and Clean Air Coalition among others    We have adopted a rights based approach to promote ownership of atmospheric air resource data for localized climate action    The topics that Infrastracker covers include air quality physical activity and climate change by documenting the real time exposure and adverse health environmental risks from utilizing biomass as domestic energy source in selected urban areas in Kenya       The Infrastracker project is currently being delivered through two distinct cost effective activities    Street by Street Air Quality SSAQ mapping We deploy volunteers each with a portable air quality monitor a portable action camera and branded t shirts with information education and communication IEC material including flyers and brochures to inform pedestrians and other road users on the real time air quality and the negative health environmental impacts of degraded air quality    One of the urban street by street air quality monitoring activities was held in Kikuyu Municipality in 2024 watch the activity here Kikuyu Municipality Street by Street Air Quality Mapping    Through the April 2025 PurpleAir Donation Program we seek to add another perspective on atmospheric resource responsibility as follows    Domestic and Community Air Quality monitoring Rural households and communities like ours still rely on biomass for domestic energy firewood charcoal and cow dung which especially exposes women and children to adverse air quality and its resulting health effects    Should our application be successful we seek to deploy PurpleAir Flex monitors across our village and neighboring villages for documentation on overall ambient air quality resulting and ii distribute PurpleAir Touch in consenting volunteer households to document the level of air pollution from biomass as domestic energy source and its health impacts on women and children    With the generated multimedia content and open air quality data we will embark on publishing our outputs in a series of videos infographics and other content on social media platforms to amplify the case for atmospheric resource responsibility through mass engagement    Additionally we are developing a community engagement civic education curriculum domesticated in local languages to enhance understanding on air quality as part of climate action    We project that this will directly impact 32000 residents of Kihumo and neighboring villages in addition to indirectly informing 120000 residents of Kikuyu Municipality       Which PurpleAir models are you interested in and how many would you want for your project?    Towards meeting our goals of advancing atmospheric resource responsibility in our village and neighboring communities we are in need of    PurpleAir Flex 5 pax    PurpleAir Touch 5 pax