Minimize the Pollution in the Car by Turning on the Air Conditioner
Driving (or idling) in bad traffic conditions not only drains the soul from your precious watch on this earth, it also negatively affects your physical well-being . And if you drive with the windows down, you will be exposed to even more pollutants, especially if you live in an area prone to smog or in a part of the country currently shrouded in smoke and haze from nearby wildfires . But you can reduce the amount of air pollution around you by activating the best comfort in your vehicle.
Engineers at the University of Washington in St. Louis have found that air conditioning is the most efficient way to keep the air in the cabin as clean as possible. To test their hypothesis, they equipped various vehicles with portable pollution sensors, both inside and outside the vehicles.
After monitoring the vehicles for four months, they determined different concentrations of pollutants depending on their location, vehicles nearby and whether construction work was underway. They also measured pollution levels by raising and lowering windows, turning on a fan or air conditioning.
When the air conditioner was on, the air in the cabin was 20-34% cleaner. You can thank your car’s cold vaporizer, an element in your air conditioning system that absorbs heat and produces cold air. The car’s cold vaporizer attracts contaminants to its surface, where it settles before entering your car’s interior.
Of course, using this trick means something of a fiendish deal: air conditioning is a major contributor to global warming, and you’ll improve indoor air quality, exacerbating your overall environmental impact. With that in mind, it might be best to save this one for particularly hot and foggy days, and stick to the fan the rest of the time.