How innovators in Pune are fighting air pollution

“We have done some good work but can do more. At present, we are capturing 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the carbon emissions from the chimeneys. Industries are approaching us because they want to comply with government regulations and meet their own sustainability goals. All my projects are around five tonne of carbon dioxide per day which, I feel, is only satisfactory because many companies emit 32-35 tonne of CO2 per day. We need more industries to create bigger targets for removing CO2,” says Mistry.

Reaching out

As one of the country’s startup hubs and engineering hot spots, Pune has stepped into the haze to clean up the act (and the air). Startups are confronting not only a health hazard but a lack of general awareness too.

“Air pollution is a major concern but a lot of people don’t know about the solutions that are available and, that’s why, they don’t adopt these,” says Ammol Chaphekar, an award-winning innovator who set up Strata Enviro Pvt in 2017. The company services 21 cities in India and exports its devices that fight air pollution to seven countries. You might not be able to see the devices, but they are present at many traffic signals, railway stations, bus stands and housing societies.

Pune Airport deployed their devices at the the pick up-and-drop locations, where cars stop and go, generally keeping the engine on.

“That is where air pollution is generated. Similarly, dust and other particulate matter also rise up. That is also a zone where the public is,” says Chaphekar.

The company is moving strongly into the B2C segment, to reach the regular consumer. “We want to reach the people,” says Chaphekar.

Look, no filters

Another company, PI Green Innovations, has created a filterless technology that it has patented in 30 countries. Apart from being efficient, this filterless technology is convenient to use. Winner of the United Nations Development Programme’s Clean Air Challenge 2019, among others, PI Green Innovations says one of its devices that uses the filterless tech, Carbon Cutter for automobiles, can be fitted into any kind of vehicle, where it will capture over 90 per cent of the particulate matter, ranging from PM2.5 to PM10, in real-time. The Carbon Cutter is also available for gensets and “eliminates hazardous pollutants from the intake, converts to fine powder form, and releases cleaner air”.

Yet another product, Repair, which was piloted in Delhi, sucks in the surrounding polluted air from critical areas, such as areas that have a high population density and heavy traffic. Then, it captures the ultra-fine particulate matter (PM2.5 onwards), stores it in powder form and releases up to 80 per cent cleaner air into the surroundings.

Hyperlocal realities

Among India’s foremost climate-tech startups, Respirer Living Sciences is working on a strategy of “Monitor, Manage and Mitigate” to achieve cleaner air. The company is an industry technology partner to the Centre of Excellence ATMAN on Clean Air Technologies, which is supported by the Government of India.

“Through a network of scientifically validated and easy-to-scale Air Quality Monitoring Devices and real-time Air Pollution Analytics Platforms, we provide accurate and actionable data to governments, industries and citizens to take control of their air pollution and methane emissions,” says an official statement of the company.

Respirer has created air quality sensors, the first devices being installed in Delhi in 2016. Today, there are 2,500 air quality devices installed in 25 cities in India, such as Mumbai and Thane, as well as in Sweden, the UK, Oman, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The company has been invited for discussions with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation to explore work in the two urban regions.

“A key driver for this engagement is the need for city systems to view all major pollution sources through a single, comparable lens. Maharashtra, alone, has close to one lakh industries under the purview of the pollution control board, an enormous and diverse landscape of emitters that cannot be effectively managed without a unified approach,” says Ronak Sutaria, Founder and CEO of Respirer Living Sciences.

He explains why this matters. “Our aim is to bring all the polluting sources in a city on a common level, so that an evaluation can be done. A state like Maharashtra has a lakh industries, which come under the purview of the pollution control board. These industries need to be evaluated on a daily basis, for which we need a common framework,” he said.

Respirer partners with city governments to deploy hyperlocal air-quality networks made up of dense sensor grids. With resolutions as fine as half a square kilometre, and in some pockets even 200 square metres, these networks are able to pinpoint neighbourhood-level hotspots that remain consistently high for months at a stretch.

“Once that happens, efforts can be made to rectify the problems in those neighborhoods,” adds Sutaria. “Such granularity enables targeted, sustained action rather than broad, city-wide assumptions,” he said.

For more than two years, the organisation WRI India has been working in Pune, besides nine other cities, to spot the polluters and ease the way for action. “One of the problematic areas in Pune is construction. How can we help socialize the idea of clean construction in Pune? This involves conducting experiments at construction sites, implementing mitigation measures, understanding how it is reducing emission concentration, monitoring that and creating best practices,” says Sree Kumar Kumaraswamy is the Program Director – Clean Air Action, Sustainable Cities and Transport at WRI India.

The organisation works with the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India and others to conduct periodical training on behalf of the PMC. “We have been working with multiple builders on their sites, and see how what process and equipment they can use and how differently they can do things that will reduce emissions and the source,” says Kumaraswamy.

WRI India is also using this knowledge to create a mechanism for PMC to better control the construction activities. “One of the things that we are currently working on is how PMC can better understand the pollution levels in the construction sites through the use of sensors. We are helping PMC to build a common platform for all the sensors of a variety of vendors so that PMC can visualise it and take action accordingly,” says Kumaraswamy.