There are 12 and 36 officially announced premises that shall meet Indoor Air Quality Act for the first and the second batch respectively in Pingtung County. The first batch of announced premises have implemented every task comply with the regulation; the second batch of announced premises have installed dedicated personnel, determined an indoor air quality maintenance and management plan and performed regular analyses and results reporting except the new regulatory listing announced premise – Yizhan Department Store at Chaozhou Railway Station which hasn't performed the first regular analyses and results reporting.
This project has inspected 162 public or private premises including 12 and 36 officially announced premises for the first and the second batch respectively and 114 non-announced premises. The results of inspection show that main problems for different types of premises as follows: (1) instant high CO2 concentration due to poor indoor ventilation and mold growth on some classrooms’ walls and ceilings in kindergartens; (2) high level of CO2 concentration due to poor indoor ventilation in the specialized classroom and exercise areas of elementary schools and junior high schools; (3) high level of CO2 concentration due to crowd in government agencies, medical institutions, hypermarkets and banks; (4) high level of HCHO concentration due to indoor renovation in social welfare organization, art museum and hotels; (5) high level of HCHO concentration due to cooking behavior in some sections of hypermarkets and department stores; (6) instant higher CO2 concentration due to crowd in theaters on holiday because of a boost from the government stimulus package; (7) high level of TVOC concentration in government agencies due to frequent use of multi-function printers ; (8) instant higher particulate matter concentration in fitness centers due to lack of replacement of air purifying filters of air-handling units ; (9) instant high HCHO and TVOC concentration in fitness studios due to the use of time-controlled aromatic spray; (10) higher level of PM2.5 concentration at the halls of some audiovisual and singing services due to the kitchen nearby; (11) instant higher particulate matter concentration at the food courts of some hypermarkets due to the entrances of parking lots nearby.
As regards the promotion of indoor air quality maintenance and management system, we have comprehensively guided 25 premises to determine their indoor air quality maintenance and management plans and 40 premises to revise their maintenance and management plans that already established to match the current situation.
With respect to the installment of dedicated personnel, 76 premises including 28 non-announced premises have obtained qualification certificates of dedicated personnel for indoor air quality maintenance and management and all of the officially announced premises including a new one have installed dedicated personnel.
As regards the inspection testing, we have executed 1296 times of inspection testing for 162 premises by using portable direct reading instruments during on-site inspection service. The results show that the incidences of instant high value for CO2, CO, HCHO, TVOC, PM2.5 and PM10 are 6.1%, 0%, 21.8%, 1.9%, 22.5% and 11% respectively.
With respect to the inspection analyses of indoor air quality standards, we have completed 16 premises (three for retesting). There are three announced premises that fail to comply with the Indoor Air Quality Standards this year. One is Pingtung Christian Hospital whose CO2 concentration exceeded with the standard value (1,000 ppm), and the others are Chaozhou World Gym and Paochien Hospital whose bacterias concentration exceeded the standard value (1,500 CFU/m3).All three announced premises mentioned above have already completed improvements and their retesting results have complied with the Indoor Air Quality Standards. In addition, we have executed indoor biological contamination tests for three kindergartens and the results show that all their bacteria concentrations exceeded the standard value (1,500 CFU/m3) and two kindergartens’ fungi concentrations exceeded the standard value(1,000 CFU/m3 and I/O ratio > 1.3).
This project held five sessions of indoor air quality well-rounded guidance meetings and the five premises are Chaozhou World Gym, Pingtung Hakka Cultural Museum, Pingtung Hospital, the Kindergarten of Chaozhou Township, and the Kindergarten of Yanpu Township. We invited three experts and scholars for each premise to give suggestions for improvement in regard to deficiencies of indoor environment, air conditioning and the building.
As regards the indoor air quality advocacy, we held not only one regulation propaganda and observation tour but also a variety of activities for the general public and school children to expand propaganda objects. The activities include a hand-on lession of making indoor air purifying plants, an indoor air quality bingo game and some prize quizzes. We hope that more people devote to improve and promote the environmental quality of premises or homes.
