Meet 'baby' Claire, explorer of Antwerp's bad air

Air pollution is responsible for about seven million premature deaths worldwide each year

Last updated: January 29, 2021 | 11:06

AFP and Compiled by Christian Borbon, Senior Web Editor

2 MIN READ

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Out for an afternoon hike, Veerle Bonaers and a friend stop pushing their baby and look down to their map, suddenly aware they have taken a wrong turn.

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Their baby, Claire, dressed in pink slippers, doesn't make a sound, sitting snug in her blue buggy, winter sunlight touching her soft tuft of blonde hair.

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Claire, an acronym for Clean Air for Everyone, is silent because she is a doll and wedged beside her are three electric sensors that measure the particulate matter that spews out of factories and car exhausts.

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Her minders, though dressed for a trek, will walk 7.5 kilometres (4.5 miles) - about 10,000 steps - from the Antwerp University campus through Belgium's notorious traffic, which makes this small EU country of 11 million one of the most harmful polluters in Europe.

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Referred to as the "silent killer", air pollution is responsible for about seven million premature deaths worldwide each year, according to the UN.

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Among European cities, Antwerp was the second deadliest after Madrid when it came to exposure to nitrogen dioxide, the poisonous gas emitted by diesel autos.

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Claire is the brainchild of Professor Roeland Samson whose research ropes in Antwerp citizens to help his team more widely measure exposure to air pollution.

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"We have hundreds of parents and grandparents willing to go on a walk with Claire," the professor told AFP as he gave the day's walkers their instructions.

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"This is very important because air quality varies a lot. If we just do one measurement in time we wouldn't have a complete picture," he added.

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When Claire is in her buggy, traffic-related pollution such as soot and particulate matter is logged every 10 seconds. Other parameters, such as wind speed and time of day, are also recorded.

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The plan is for Claire to go out daily until November, and volunteers are able to sign up on the university website dedicated to the project.

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