Air pollution causes cardiovascular and respiratory health problems, affects birth outcomes, brain development and function, and is linked to cancer, chronic diseases, including diabetes, and other illnesses. Toronto Public Health estimates that air pollution in Toronto from all sources currently gives rise to 1,300 premature deaths and over 3,500 hospitalizations. Emission from vehicles and homes are the biggest contributors to air pollution in Toronto. Pollutants carries harmful chemicals, toxic particles, and traces of heavy metals that can potentially contaminate our food supply and accumulate in body tissues. Although recent trends in levels of common pollutants shows that air quality is improving, more still needs to be done in curbing the emissions.
One way to control air pollution is to monitor the air quality. A group of scientists from across Canada founded a simple way to involve people and communities to participate in air quality monitoring. They are inviting and bringing people together to join their bryomonitoring project. Bryomonitoring uses the bryophyte family, which includes small plants like mosses, lichens and hornworts to detect and monitor atmospheric deposition such as the presence of heavy metals in the air. It focuses on collecting two species of bryophytes found throughout Canada, Hylocomium splendens (stair-step moss) and Pleurozium schreberi (red-stemmed feather moss). From the tissues of these two mosses, they can determine the amount of heavy metals and nutrients that have fallen from the atmosphere over the last 2 to 3 years. It is an effective monitoring tool to help understand atmospheric deposition, but they need people like you to help collect samples!
To learn more about the project and to register as a sample collector, visit their website at bryomonitoring.ca. The best time to collect samples is now until fall. Give it a try and ask your family or friends to go with you in one of the site collections. It will be fun!
