🎈 Public Lab: [Talk Recording] Mobilizing People to Act on Air Pollution with the Bucket Air Monitor

[Talk Recording] Mobilizing People to Act on Air Pollution with the Bucket Air Monitor - a Community Science Tool

by amocorro | May 12, 2021 20:15 12 May 20:15 ... | #26568 | #26568

The Open Source Hardware Association - 2021 Virtual Open Hardware Summit

[Link to recording; 15mins] Talk Title: "Mobilizing People to Act on Air Pollution with the Bucket Air Monitor - a Community Science Tool"

Synopsis of recorded talk:

The “bucket” is a low-cost, community-friendly air sampler that helps people measure toxic chemicals such as benzene and hydrogen sulfide in their air. Developed in the late 1990s, it was one of the first (if not the very first) do-it-together environmental monitors. Communities living near oil refineries and petrochemical plants gathered to build their own buckets. They established phone trees to make sure that, when noxious fumes enveloped their neighborhood, someone would take a sample. Twenty years later, buckets continue to be a critical tool for fenceline communities impacted by oil and gas development.

About the speakers:

Katie Gradowski (@kgradow1) - Public Lab Community Technology Fellow
Rico Euripido - groundWork South Africa's Environmental Health Campaigner

Link to the Bucket Toolkit https://publiclab.org/tag/bucket-monitor

Photo: "De-bucketizing the org chart" by opensourceway is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

1 Comments

We are very close to being able to use our bucket kits in the field and want to thank everyone who made a reliable kit based on the CBE buckets. This was the number one tool my community was searching for when were learning about air monitoring.

I want to add a few items that I have found useful when finding and working with a lab:

-Do you have a courier service or can you refer us to one? (Courier services will transport your air sample to the lab. A number of tests require that the sample be analyzed within 24 hours).

-Can you give us copies of the chain of custody forms? Chain of custody forms are supplied by the lab and you will need to use their form.

-Can you give us a list of the test/methods you perform, as well as a price list?

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