'Bucket tests' key to keeping an eye on air pollution in Bay

Source: www.nelsonmandelabay.gov.za

Hoffmann heads up the Igazi Foundation's Leukemia Incidence: Vital Environmental Studies project. The project assists doctors in figuring out why there is an unusually high incidence of leukaemia in the metro.

Hoffman has been fighting pollution in the Swartkops, Markman and Bluewater Bay areas for two decades.

She said 20 years ago she tried desperately to get independent air testing done, but it was too expensive.

Bongani Mthembu, of the South Durban Environmental Alliance, came to Port Elizabeth on Tuesday to show members of the LIVES group and environmental studies students how to take "bucket air samples" for independent testing.

"Where I come from leukaemia and asthma are words we are very familiar with," Mthembu said. "They refer to our area as cancer valley."

He said he never thought he would become an environmentalist.

"But I became curious [about] why my mom always had to use her asthma inhaler." He discovered she grew up exposed to pollutants.

Mthembu said the bucket used to take air samples was developed by Danny Larsen from Global Community Monitoring. "It is especially useful in developing countries," he said.

But before bucket sampling was done people should use their nose.

"We first use our noses to sniff around. I have a very sharp nose."

If weird or toxic smells were detected, a sample of the air was taken using the bucket and sent off for testing at a laboratory in Pretoria.

They used to send samples to the US "because most laboratories here were funded by multinational companies we suspected of pollution".

Testing was cheaper now they had found an independent laboratory.

He urged communities to implement bucket testing for themselves.

"We had a similar problem in Durban. Budgets are reduced to nothing. Air stations are not operational. There is a distinct lack of political will to address this issue," Mthembu said.

Hoffman said it was time people started complaining about air pollution. "When I asked for the municipality's statistics they told me only one or two people complained about air pollution all last year."

She said while taking air samples in the industrial area near Markman on Wednesday they were threatened by a security guard who told them he had "shot at people" the previous day.

Seven NMMU students joined Hoffman and the LIVES group for the day. They would set up petitions.

She said the testing method using the bucket was SABS approved.

Hoffmann urged the public to let them know where and when they were smelling noxious pollutants.

Contact Hoffmann at az.gro.izagi@sevil.

Source: Herald