Clean air at work campaign

Purchase of air quality monitors

The purchase by RMT of Qingping air quality monitors for safety reps to use in their workplaces has been welcomed, some describing how much they were looking forward to using the monitors and how they found the monitors slightly addictive as they went around everywhere measuring air quality.

London Underground RMT safety reps have written detailed reports to their employer, with information on workplace measurement data, describing when and where the measurement was taken, and backing this up with research relating to health problems and consequences that can be caused by air pollution.

To help reps get a better understanding of how the monitors work, RMT organised a meeting on 15th June (National Clean Air Day), which 40 safety reps attended. Speakers at the RMT meeting were

Hilda Palmer from Hazards Campaign/Trade Union Clean Air Campaign (TUCAN) and Sharon IsaacUpton, Head of UK operations at Smart Air. A video presentation of the Qingping device was shown and there was an opportunity following this for questions and comments.

Hilda Palmer explained that the handheld mobile air quality monitors had improved considerably in recent years in terms of their reliability, but if employers do question the reliability of these monitors there is nothing to stop them from buying more expensive monitors! It was explained that you don’t need to be connected to the Internet to use the monitor, but the time/weather feature will be unavailable. The air monitor does not support Wi-Fi that requires authentication to be completed on a web page or information to be entered in a special login client. Hilda Palmer said that in a dusty environment, you may need to manually recalibrate the CO2 sensor more frequently; the QP Lite doesn’t need maintaining but it needs exposure to outdoor air ideally once a week.

Hilda said that the target for a healthy/safe measurements should be WHO (World Health Organisation) standards – rather than UK standards.

If you are interested in using a Qingping monitor they are available to borrow from your Regional Office.

Please inform RMT H&S section at Unity House: healthandsafety@rmt.org.uk of any progress made with your employers as a result of readings you send them.