BENGALURU: A week after a German company, Mann+Hummel group, installed a fine dust eater at Cubbon Park, there has been a drastic improvement in the air quality at the park. The company claims that the mobile fine dust eater unit, that goes around Cubbon Park, has filtered the air and purified it by 80 per cent.
According to a fine dust eater expert, Harsha Prakash Gowda from the Mann+Hummel group, “There has been an 85 per cent decline in the level of particulate matter (PM) for a 30-meter radius, in one week by the dust eater.”
“When we installed it, the particulate matter was much less. With this being the Diwali week, the pollution has increased due to crackers. While the present PM 2.5 is 38.4 micro grams per meter cube and PM 10 is 74 micro grams in the area, the PM level has been reduced in this particular radius” he added.
Exact figures of PM levels are yet to be shared by the company. The stationary unit will be in place for a period of six months and the mobile unit for 15 days. As per the agreement between the company and the horticulture department, a report will be published later.
“We are awaiting figures from the company with the data collected from their unit which runs continuously. As we need a government body to verify it, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) officials will test the PM levels around the stationary dust eater unit on November 15,” said deputy director of Cubbon Park, Mahantesh Murgod.
“We have asked the company to send a detailed report to us in three months. The reports from KSPCB and the company will be shared with environmentalist Yellappa Reddy and joint director of Horticulture department, M Jagadeesh,” he added.
The mobile unit which has the dust eater installed on a vehicle will run till November 15, and the stationary unit will run for the next six months. Based on the above reports, the department will take a call on purchasing the fine dust eater units for Cubbon Park and possibly Lalbagh.
The dust that gets collected and stuck inside the filter of the dust eater will be outsourced to a scrap agency for disposal, Harsha explained. They can be emptied after six to eight months.