In California, the San Francisco Bay Area issued a "Spare the Air" alert for today, July 25, due to dangerous concentrations of ozone pollution.
The the Bay Area Air Quality Management District first established this Spare the Air program in 1991, to spread awareness about air pollution levels in the region and to provide public warnings when air quality reaches harmful or dangerous levels for human health.
Major causes of air pollution is preventable which are mostly derived from automobiles and industrial waste where the main goal of this program is to educate the public about promoting a greener and healthier lifestyle and to adopt these changes.
The program listed down some lifestyle changes that locals can apply during this alert such as walking or biking to school or work, using fuel efficient vehicles, taking public transportation or carpooling to work, doing errands after dark, having lunch at work to avoid driving around during the day, using an old fashioned lawn mower or an electric model, using brooms and rakes instead of a leaf blower, avoid burning charcoal for barbecues and use a gas grill instead and lastly, storing aerosol spray cans inside cabinets until air quality gets better.
The AirAlerts released by the program involves daily emails that encourage citizens to live a healthier lifestyle or behavior to help produce better air quality as opposed to adding more to damaging air pollution. Apart from this, these alerts can also help those who have respiratory ailments to take safety precautions like those who suffer from asthma and emphysema.
In addition, this initiative also has an Employer Program that provides 2,100 companies with crucial environmental and health information for employees to further refrain from activities that can aggravate air pollution especially when an official alert is issued.
The Spare the Air program also has community resource teams, where residents in specific neighborhoods and areas can work with their own programs and efforts to lower air pollution on a community level.