The start of spring is notorious for allergy and asthma sufferers as dust from winter grit is blown about the drying streets. However, a degree of relief might be found for allergy sufferers if private property owners started to tidy up in their own backyards.
Acceptable levels of air pollution have been exceeded several times over the last five days in Seinäjoki and Vaasa. On Tuesday morning the air quality was particularly bad in Seinäjoki.
“The situation is the worst in the morning,” says Seinäjoki’s municipal environment head, Pirjo Korhonen. “At night it’s well below freezing, the roads dry up and the traffic sends dust from the grit airborne.” Later in the day the air pollution eases somewhat as melting snow wets the roads, helping to keep the dust on the roads and out of the lungs of hapless pedestrians.
Clean up your own backyard
While the city will clean the streets as soon as possible, Korhonen explains that the weather conditions mean it won’t happen as soon as many would like. Meanwhile, she hopes that owners of large or windy yards or private courtyards will do their part to clean up as early as they can.
“It seems that the yards of large stores, for example, are already free of snow. When the wind blows it takes the dust with it,” says Korhonen, “so it would be desirable if that source could be cleaned up already.”