the air we breathe

Since our sonic kayak experiments in September last year, we have been thinking about also using the bikes to record air quality data as they ride. That this data could then not only be shared on relevant data bases for other use, but that it would also be used to create or transform the bike music playing. Could Middlesbrough be a situation to realise this idea?  A riverside hamlet that with 1840’s industrialisation grew fast into a town that needed many people to come work in its growing blast furnaces and steel works, creating astonishing air pollution, the smell of coal burning, faces and washing and houses impregnated with soot the norm, living with lung diseases and shortened lives the norm, making today’s town centre seem as fresh as a daisy ?  Yes of course now it’s so much cleaner but particulate matter and nitrous oxide levels are still high, the industry along the Tees still pumping out matter not to mention the traffic. There are not many bikes evident either and the housing areas have many streets cut by pavements (to improve living there) but making them unfriendly for cyclists.  More bikes here would surely improve health, lift spirits, cut bus bills and costs all round plus reduce traffic also improving the air.