Air in climbing gyms more polluted than on streets

The air in climbing gyms is more polluted than on the streets Keystone-SDA

The rubber abrasion from climbing shoes makes for thick air in climbing gyms. The concentration of potentially harmful chemicals in climbing gyms is sometimes higher than on busy roads, say researchers from Switzerland and Austria in a study.

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“The air pollution in the boulder gyms was higher than we had expected,” said study leader Thilo Hofmann from the University of Vienna in a statement from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) on Tuesday.

“The values we measured are among the highest ever documented worldwide, comparable to multi-lane roads in megacities.”

The reason for the air pollution in climbing gyms is the soles of climbing shoes. These are made of rubber compounds similar to car tyres.

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For the new study, the researchers collected dust samples from various bouldering gyms in Switzerland, France and Spain. They published the results in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Air.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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