(intense music) I know what you're thinking.

There is no way that this scented candle can cover the smell of all of this, but in fact, it may make the problems even worse.

Did you know that this fresh linen scented candle is an indoor air pollutant?

In fact, the mold, fecal matter from bugs and some cleaning supplies all make the air we breathe in our own homes polluted.

It definitely makes me want to get a breath of fresh air.

But what about outdoor pollutants?

Outdoor pollutants include carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide from motor vehicle emissions, dust from industry and construction and smog.

Whether you're inside or outside, air pollutants can make it difficult to breathe and cause long-term damage to our overall health.

We're shining a light on air pollution and its effects on the environment.

That's now, on "Spotlight Earth".

(uplifting music) Let's get outta here and away from all these bad vibes.

My co-host Jarrell, joins us now.

Jarrell, you breathing in some fresh air there at the beach?

I am Ellen, and it's a perfect day here at Red Wing Park in Virginia Beach.

The trees and plants are working overtime to provide us with clean air to breathe, but not everywhere outside has clean air like this.

In fact, air quality is an important environmental indicator.

The World Health Organization estimates that polluted air contributes to more than 6 million premature deaths each year.

But there are a lot of things that can lead to poor air quality.

The two most common sources are particulate matter and elevated amounts of ground-level ozone.

The ozone layer is naturally occurring ozone way, way up in the stratosphere that protects earth from ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

But ground-level ozone forms when nitrogen oxides mix with organic compounds in the presence of heat and sunlight.

According to the EPA, ground level ozone can cause a number of health problems, like difficulty breathing, coughing and lung damage.

Particulate matter in the air is made of solid and liquid particles like smoke, dust, and other aerosols.

Particle pollution is connected with a number of health problems, including wheezing, coughing, reduced lung function, asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, and even early death.

If you wanna keep enjoying this beautiful air outside, then we need to take our air quality very seriously, and that starts with monitoring.

Hales is standing by in the lab with some ideas on just how that works.

Hey, Jarrell, being out in the fresh air looks amazing, if not a little warm, but at least we have AC working here.

Welcome to our cool, cool lab.

Let's investigate how to compare the air quality in more than one location.

Here are the materials I've gathered for this air quality investigation.

I have three microscope slides, on which I've drawn a square on each.

And now I'm gonna label them with the locations I wanna test.

We're going to leave one in the lab, one right outside the building and one on a busy, six lane street near the lab.

(soft upbeat music) And now I'll use this cotton swab and rub a thick coat of petroleum jelly on each slide.

The slide we leave here in the lab will serve as a control for our experiment.

Let's put the remaining two slides in their locations.

One outside our lab building.

(soft upbeat music) And one by the busy street.

(soft upbeat music) We need to wait 24 hours for the particulates to fully show up on the slides.

See you tomorrow.

(intense music) Okay, samples are ready.

It's time to take a look.

We'll analyze the indoor sample first.

Most buildings have indoor filters to keep a lot of the particulates out.

However, we'll still be able to see some particulates on the slides.

All right, let's count those particulates.

I'll record this information.

Okay, now let's examine the outdoor slides.

We placed this first one right outside of the lab building.

And I'm counting the particulates, and I'll record this data too.

We placed the final slide near that busy, six lane street.

Again, we'll count the particulates.

Wow.

Check out all the particulates.

Okay.

I'll write this down too.

Now, let's compare the particulate counts from the three slides.

We can see that the air quality in these three locations is vastly different, with the cleanest air being in this lab and the dirtiest coming from beside the road.

Air quality is important to plant, animal and human health.

This scientific investigation serves as just a small glimpse into how air quality can differ from location to location, even when samples are taken within a few hundred feet of each other.

It's a good reminder of why it's important to keep our air clean.

And, to reinforce that sentiment, let's check in with Jarrell who's standing by with an air quality expert at Red Wing Park.

Thanks, Hales.

I'm with Craig Nicol from Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality.

Craig, why is air quality so important to Virginians?

Air quality is important because it protects the health of our environment and the health of our citizens.

How does your agency monitor air quality?

We do it through a series or a suite of monitors across the commonwealth.

We actually have three of them here in Hampton Roads.

Those monitors are based to establish limits that we use in our regulatory process.

Part of that is so that we can control things under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards established by EPA in 1970.

Those are things like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, lead, ground-level ozone.

How does DEQ use data to assess and manage air quality?

We use the monitoring data, plus we use emissions data from different factories or industries that pollute from air emissions.

We take that data and create an annual emissions report.

We use that to help model.

Those modeling results can tell us where we may need to be more stringent or less stringent in our regulatory development process.

How does your agency collaborate with other organizations to address air quality issues here in Virginia?

We do that in multiple ways, but we, our stakeholders or those other agencies might be the Department of Transportation and how they're working on automobiles and tunnels and other projects, so we can look at concrete plants or asphalt plants.

We might work with the Department of Energy around mines and minerals and things associated with quarries or aggregate materials, so we might work with those agencies in a way to collaborate to better establish air quality standards for that particular project.

We've made significant improvements in air quality in Virginia in the last 20 years.

We've seen improvements with things like electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, power plants using less fossil fuels, renewable resource usage.

So many things have improved air quality in Virginia.

If we're going to think about what's coming in the future, it can be how regulations may change as science informs our regulatory process, How can we as regular Virginians do our part to help with air quality?

Simple things like cutting off the power, unplugging things, using less fossil fuels, maybe taking our time to think about what we purchase, such as things in aerosol cans.

Any little thing we can do where we know there's an impact related to air emissions or air quality, if we can reduce that in our own lives, we can reduce its impact on our health and our environment.

Craig, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, and thank you for all the hard work you're doing by keeping the air quality here safe for in Virginia.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

(upbeat music) I can breathe a little easier knowing more about air pollutants and ways we can limit them in our air supply, but it's up to all of us to play our part.

We'll see you next time on "Spotlight Earth".

(upbeat music)