00:00Smoke from burning waste, exhaust fumes and industrialization are forms of pollution that can be seen.
00:12But pollution is made up of hundreds of different particles and gases that are often not visible to the naked eye and can be more harmful.
00:21So a lot of the air pollution is coming off our PMs, so a particulate matter, which is very, very small particles.
00:29They specifically affect unborn children, they affect children under 5 and those that are over 60, so those are your vulnerable groups.
00:38We see a lot of mine dust as well in TSPs, your total suspended particles, and a combination of VOCs and sulfurs.
00:48All of these combined make very, very bad inhalation risk and put you at very large exposure to air pollution risks.
00:56Now researchers and scientists at the Witts Institute for Collider Particle Physics developed an environmental monitoring system using AI to collect data.
01:06This school in Soweto was part of the pilot. A device was placed here over a year ago to collect data.
01:14Now that the pilot is complete and funding has been received, up to 500 new devices will be deployed across the country,
01:23not only to look at more data, but also to start looking at mitigation.
01:29So, for instance, at a school like this, once the device starts recording dangerously high levels of pollution,
01:37it will sound an alarm, alerting students to wear their masks.
01:41What the pilot has taught us is the fact that pollution is driven by hotspots.
01:52And the hotspots last for about an hour to two hours at the most, even half an hour.
01:57So the way to deal with this is to issue alerts through automated systems such as apps or similar type of digital footprints
02:10that can provide and propagate alerts or digital alerts, just like the weather.
02:17Professor Bruce Malado and his team are now working through the data to find solutions
02:23to improve air quality and reduce respiratory illnesses.
02:27There are several sources of pollution in the city.
02:31One, the obvious one is traffic, traffic driven, which creates a modulation between day and night.
02:38But also you can see, you can appreciate that the pollution driven by traffic is strongly correlated with rush hours.
02:48So it doesn't mean that the pollution is bad throughout the day or throughout working hours, but it has severe spikes.
02:55So that helps us a lot in identifying remedial action in particular areas.
03:00We also see that burning, particularly illegal burning, has also a very serious footprint in the accumulation of pollutants in the city.
03:12The new AI real-time monitor is a world first and has the ability to save lives and the environment.
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