KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 — Malaysia must upgrade all its machines used to measure the air pollutant index (API) as the current equipment does not reflect the true health risks posed by the annual haze season, PKR lawmaker Wong Chen said today.
The Kelana Jaya MP claimed that the current standard of PM10 used by Malaysia to measure air particles is inferior to that of neighbouring Singapore, which uses the smaller measurement of PM2.5.
PM10 means the machines count the level of particles in the air that are 10 micrometres or less in diameter, while PM2.5 means that measurements are taken for particles that have a diameter 2.5 micrometres or less.
Wong Chen stressed that the US Environmental Protection Agency rates particles under the PM2.5 category as "fine" particles that "pose the greatest health risks" as they can easily lodge deeply into the lungs.
He noted that the fact that Malaysia has 12 PM2.5 facilities implies that the government is not particularly concerned about the issue, especially since it took Putrajaya three years between 2012 and 2015 to upgrade just seven of the facilities.
"This rate of implementation does not demonstrate any form of urgency on the part of the government to improve its reporting on the yearly haze problem," he said in a statement.
"If there is genuine political will to safeguard the health of 30 million Malaysians, I am certain within 12 months from today, the DOE Ministry will be able to install all the DOE sites with PM2.5 machines," he said, referring to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry.
Wong Chen urged the federal government to explain how much and how long it will take to install a PM2.5 machine, while at the same time immediately send out hourly reports of PM2.5 measurement at all 12 sites already set up with the upgraded machines.
