On the battery side, there is the drop in air pollution linked to the fall in economic activity due to confinement. On the face side, the increase in air and noise pollution in homes, an unexpected effect of the coronavirus epidemic. As of March 17, the start date of confinement, indoor air pollution and noise pollution increased in French households, according to a study by Netatmo.
“47% of French households exceeded the 1,000 ppm CO2 threshold at least once during that day. This means that these homes were not ventilated enough to renew the air, ”said the manufacturer of connected objects Netatmo. After this peak, indoor pollution remained higher than that of 2019 over the same period. "According to the data measured, on average 34% of French households exceed the threshold of 1000 particles per million (ppm) of CO2 at least once a week, compared to 30% on average in 2019", specifies the study. Small point of consolation, French homes are the least polluted in Europe!
Noise on the rise
Confinement also did not rhyme with calm and serenity. Noise has increased by 40% in homes: children, noisy neighbors or taking advantage of the opportunity to carry out work, all this has contributed to increase the level of decibels above 42.59 dB on average. Again, the phenomenon is paradoxical, when calm had returned to the streets deserted by cars, not to mention the silence near the airports.
These figures were collected from collected and anonymized data from Netatmo weather stations in seven European countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Another lesson to remember: the ability of people to properly ventilate their homes is decorated by the country - and therefore the climate.
