Air pollution and Encaustics
This blog was promoted by a chance observation on my environmental monitor system (see my separate blog on Air Pollution Monitor System ). It has two air quality sensors connected, one outdoors on the south side of the house and the other indoors in the lounge, perched on the back of the settee where I usually sit. So the second one monitors what I actually breath in. A month or so I bought an electric stylus tool for my encaustic (beeswax) based artwork. It's basically a soldering iron with a special bit and a temperature control system that maintains the tip at a pre-set fixed value. I've not used it much but on 13th November 2025 I was using it to tack together a few wax pieces. Next day I noticed a really strong surge of PM2.5 air pollution graph from the 'settee sensor' - just about 3 feet from where I was working. The curve is as shown below and can be seen to peak somewhere around 60um/m3. To appreciate the significance of this value, note that WHO recommended ...