Air quality monitoring for ‘green’ games

Monitoring emissions

Ecotech Australia, in partnership with Envirotech India, has signed a contract to provide monitoring stations within Delhi to examine air quality during the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games (CWG), being held 3-14 October.

The organising committee of this year’s games is committed to sustainable building and maintenance, with initiatives taken to reduce the carbon emissions from games-related activities. The use of solar energy for water heaters and external lighting, double-glazed windows, a rainwater harvesting system and strategic biodiverse landscaping has enabled the Games to be ‘greener’.

Sudhir Mital, Special Director General of the Delhi CWG, said, “The OC [organising committee] of CWG Delhi 2010 has identified and recommended green initiatives to be incorporated in the construction and upgrade of the competition venues.” He believes this will be a platform to reach out to a wider audience and spread awareness of sustainable environments and eco-consciousness.

One of the venues, Thyagaraj Stadium, which will be used for the netball at the Games, is claimed to be a model of sustainability, with features such as 100% recycled water for irrigation of green areas, a solar roof generating 1 MW of electricity, a 2.5 MW gas turbine used instead of diesel-fed generators for power generation, fly ash lime bricks used in construction, along with recycled PVC flooring.

The contract between the Delhi Pollution Control Commission (DPCC), Ecotech and Envirotech is for the supply of four air quality monitoring stations to examine air quality in Delhi for the next five years, including monitoring the air quality during the 2010 Games.

The air quality stations are used to monitor online levels of toxic gases/pollutants (ie, SO2, H₂S, O₃, NO_x, NO, NO₂, CO, CO₂, NH₃, dust particulate PM10, PM2.5 etc) present in ambient air.

All four stations will be commissioned and operating before the Games begin in October.

The company has experience with other games, supplying systems and instruments to the Victorian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the authority charged with checking the level of air pollution in Melbourne during the 2006 Commonwealth Games and to the NSW EPA, the authority charged with checking the level of air pollution in Sydney during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.