Bandanair’s vision to save the world in three acts

Capital Hero. Magician/Scientist Kevin Quantum watches over the city from the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle.

Collectively, humans can be wilfully self-destructive, even when constructive means of survival are at hand.  What can be more essential to survival than the air we breathe? Yet pollutants affect the quality of that air, affecting both our long-term and short-term health and quality of life.

Research also demonstrates how air flow in both open and enclosed environments affects viral transmission. Airborne viruses like Covid-19 and other coronaviruses thrive under certain atmospheric conditions.

Studies show  that where enclosed spaces have high humidity and poor air flow, diseases like the coronavirus – which is transmitted through air droplets from coughing, sneezing or simply breathing – can spread much more quickly than in drier environments with good air flow.

Why does humanity fail to act on an issue so vital to our well-being?

Sometimes the issues seem too entrenched and much too large for us to have an impact on them.  The enormity of the problem makes us feel helpless. What can we do to make a change?

A surprising amount, it turns out – with strategies for long-term change married with tools for immediate action.

Act One: Air quality awareness and education for school-aged children

Knowledge means power:  The more people learn at an earlier stage, the better equipped they are to understand how and why air quality is a problem and to take measures to fix it, both on the worldwide scale and on the personal level.

Bandanair’s Learning for Sustainability program offers lesson plans aimed to engage, motivate, entertain and inform children. The program includes entertaining and engaging videos, The Magic of Science, hosted by magician-scientist-adventurer, Kevin Quantum, to spark curiosity and engagement with the science behind the issues.

The STEAM-aligned lessons include lesson plans, videos, and character-led books. The program also includes analytics and our Wi-Fi enabled PiCO Home air quality sensor to harvest real-time data that reports on air quality and how it changes in different locations and times.

See examples of:

• Learning for Sustainability program
• The Magic of Science with Kevin Quantam
• Air Quality education lesson plans

Schools and teaching institutes already have access to valuable data for use with these lessons, from which teachers and students can draw conclusions on behaviour and learning achievements relating to air quality.

Act Two: The PiCO Home Air Quality Monitor

While the scientists of today (and the budding problem-solvers of the future) seek ways to address air pollution, an immediate, localised solution comes in the form of Bandanair’s highly accurate PiCO Home Air Quality Monitor, featuring high-spec laser particulate sensors.

By monitoring air quality – including levels of carbon dioxide, allergens, oxides, pollutants and humidity – you will better understand the conditions that have an impact on you, your family and your colleagues’ health. With that information, you can then take steps to improve air flow and reduce air-borne irritants from your vicinity.

PiCO also measures humidity and temperature. You can adjust heating and cooling systems as well as air filtration devices to alter or minimise situations that can harm your health.

Act Three: Smart Masks

Improving air quality for everyone will take time, but in the meantime you can wear a mask. (All the best heroes do, right?)

Not a medical grade product, Bandanair’s 4-layer, multi-use LEGACY facemask meets UK General Safety Regulations.

It is a first line defence against air-borne pollutants, including dust, pollen, PM10 & PM2.5, VOCs and Carbon Dioxide. The whole mask acts as a filter, incorporating a military-grade antiviral, viricidal (an agent that inactivates viruses), silver-impregnated active carbon filter. The face mask fits extremely well with minimal leakage.  The LEGACY mask also comes in various fashionable designs, so you can look smart while being smart.

What gets measured gets managed

The ultimate goal is to eradicate air pollution and air-borne virus transmission. We can achieve that with a combination of the three acts to save the world.

Inform

People need to care about air before they will clear the air. This begins early, at all levels from junior school-age children to business and government.

Measure

By collecting data through PiCO Home and its commercial air quality measurement counterparts, we can better understand and then manage our environment, particularly where it affects our health.

Manage and Improve

When we are informed and have critical, at-source data on air quality under differing circumstances, we can act accordingly. Action can include everything from the use of smart masks and smart filters to broader clean air initiatives, such as improvements to polluting and disease-carrying environments and developing products that are less polluting and more protective.

Saving the World – an ambitious but achievable plan

 The more we learn about how air-borne disease spreads as well as how pollutants affect our daily health and wellbeing, the more we can use the data to analyse, identify and rectify trouble spots early on.

We can also use data about air quality in partnership with others to pool our collective knowledge and techniques to develop effective, affordable systems and tools to manage our environment.

Monitoring and improving the quality of the air we breathe leads to improving our quality of life. With tools we can use right away and an education plan to encourage change now and into the future may seem ambitious – but it’s absolutely achievable. All we need to do is to start.

We invite you to start with us.

For further information visit – https://www.bandanair.com/