New mysterious boxes in the South Bronx will monitor air quality
NEW YORK - With high rates of asthma and air pollution in neighborhoods in the South Bronx, community groups are taking matters into their own hands to change the future for their residents.
If you live in the South Bronx, you've probably wondered why there are grey boxes hanging on elevated locations throughout the neighborhood. And local organizations say they're designed to make the community better, in ways that have never been done before.
"This monitor here will measure particulate matter," explained Mychal Johnson, a founding member of South Bronx Unite.
Members of South Bronx Unite are hard at work installing 25 air quality monitors around the borough. It's a new way the group is taking matters into their own hands to force policy and legislation changes by tracking the pollution levels they say plagues their community. They received state funding to help kick the plan in motion.
"We can no longer live in these circumstances and in these environmental conditions where we're subject to having poor health and we're subject to not having enough resources or funding. We need to raise our voice and advocate for more," said Leslie Vasquez, a Clean Air Project Organizer at South Bronx Unite.
- Related story: "I noticed my breathing wasn't acting right": Bronx asthma patients say they feel sick from air quality
CBS New York has extensively reported on the high rates of asthma residents in the borough face. A 2021 NYC Health report shows ER visits for children in some neighborhoods as being 20 times higher.
"You can see the traffic behind me -- it's pretty stagnant. It's continuous. The emissions coming from these vehicles are polluting the air, but we need research to really tell that story," said Johnson.
South Bronx Unite says they're placing the monitors in highly trafficked areas and in areas where diesel trucks are putting toxins and pollutants back into the air.
The group is making the information accessible to all residents in real time, just by scanning a QR code located at each monitor.
"We have to change it. Our children are requiring and are expecting us to do everything we can to change how they're breathing and what they're breathing," said Johnson.
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