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Everyone’s diligently checking PM2.5 readings before stepping outdoors these days. But one Singaporean has found a different metric to make sense of the effects of the haze.
Zi Heng, 21, a Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) student, recently created a website called “How Much Haze Have You Smoked Today?”
Yes, it estimates how many cigarettes’ worth of fine-particle pollution you could have been exposed to based on Singapore’s haze readings.
Speaking to 8days.sg, Zi Heng says: “I am a firm believer in not smoking. It does indeed feel ironic to equate the haze to cigarettes, but perhaps we should view the haze to be as dangerous as cigarettes, as I feel some youngsters might be underestimating the danger the haze brings.”
The website’s measurements are based on metrics from environmental research organisation Berkeley Earth, which estimates that breathing air containing 22 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic metre over 24 hours is roughly comparable to one cigarette.
The calculation assumes someone is breathing outdoor air continuously at an average breathing rate. These are rough comparisons based on outdoor air pollution levels, not actual cigarettes smoked or a medical assessment of the health effects.
When 8days.sg checked the website on October 14 at 4pm, it estimated that the island-wide average PM2.5 exposure over the previous 24 hours was equivalent to 4.4 cigarettes. If the pollution level recorded during the latest hour continued for an entire day, the exposure could be equivalent to 9.4 cigarettes.
The idea behind the website was simple: He just wanted something that would make haze readings easier to understand.
“I just wanted to craft a simple-looking website, as I have a few family members and friends that are also often overwhelmed by all the different numbers, so I just wanted a simple website for them to use,” he added.
It took him a week to build it himself and only decided to share it online after his family and friends responded positively.
“I find that the 24h PSI is a little like trying to drive a car while looking at the rear-view mirror and doesn’t help with whether I should go for a run now,” he explains. “The one-hour PM2.5 readings are also decent, but it is confusing because the scale of it differs from the 24h PSI.”
His website displays one-hour and three-hour PSI estimates, calculated from PM2.5 concentrations, alongside NEA’s official 24-hour PSI readings.
It also breaks down air pollution levels across Singapore’s north, south, east, west and central regions.
However, Zi Heng makes clear that his one-hour and three-hour PSI figures are his own calculations, not official NEA readings.
“I have listed quite a lot of warnings near all my readings! The last thing I would want is to mislead anyone,” he says.
The website also draws directly from NEA’s data API.
According to Zi Heng, the data generally updates around one to two minutes after the hour changes, while he has observed that NEA’s public haze website sometimes takes around 10 minutes.
Zi Heng stresses that the measurements should not be used as medical advice.
“It shouldn’t be used as a scientific measure or for advice, but it can hopefully help convince vulnerable people to stay home during the haze, just like they would avoid a smoking corner,” he explains.
“I was really shocked by just how bad the haze is when putting it to a metric that we already know is bad conventionally (cigarettes),” he admits.
What started as a personal project has since caught the attention of other Singaporeans after he shared it on Reddit, getting around 2,000 views daily as of Oct 14.
For now, he intends to keep the website running indefinitely, even when the haze clears.
And while the cigarette calculator may sound alarming, Zi Heng says the project is ultimately meant to offer Singaporeans a different perspective on air pollution.
“It’s just a little bit of fun, and I just want to provide a different way of viewing the same problem all of us Singaporeans are facing,” he says.
And Zi Heng, who has never smoked, certainly isn’t encouraging anyone to start.
He reveals that the cigarette calculator wasn’t originally meant to be the website’s main attraction.
“This started as a joke between me and my friends, and thus when I started this website, I decided to just leave it in,” he laughs.
“It essentially came because a friend joked that the haze made smoking technically less harmful as the difference between inhaled smoke and the surrounding air has decreased,” he added.
Well, that’s one way to look at it, though, of course, smoking remains harmful regardless of how hazy the air gets.
Who knew a joke among friends could turn into a haze tracker that thousands of Singaporeans would find useful?
Now, if only the haze itself would disappear as quickly as Zi Heng built his website.