It’s currently intense air pollution season in Laos. It’s late April as I write this, but the intense air pollution started in March.

Gray Skies Smiling at Me

The air pollution has been intense recently.

Here’s the scale so you’re aware of what the numbers mean:

In March and April, air pollution has ranged from 120-180. I’ve had to stay inside and avoid outdoor activities as much as possible recently. When I go outside, I wear a KN-95. (It’s usually around 40-100 during a normal day at any other time of the year.) By comparison, Dallas is usually somewhere around the 30s or 40s.

The sky looks strange with so much air pollution.

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2024)

This is what the sky looks like in the morning before I go to school. It looks a little bit blue here. In reality, without a camera, it looks completely gray. I haven’t seen the blue sky since sometime in February. (I can’t remember exactly when.)

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2024)

I took this photo from my apartment. Once again, it has hints of blue. In reality, it’s completely gray. Even the darkness looks strange with air pollution. It looks like a hazy darkness, not like a clear pitch black.

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2024)

I’ve never seen the sun look like this.

One morning I woke up, and I thought that it was a cloudy, rainy day. I was really excited since I love curling up with a good book and staying indoors. How disappointed I was to learn that it was nothing more than air pollution!

See the air quality of Vientiane in real time

Causes of Air Pollution

Laos is mainly an agricultural country, so I was surprised that there was so much pollution during this time of year.

Here’s the “why” of it explained by IQair.com: “Outdoor, open burning and open dumping and burning is common practice, together with slash-and-burn agriculture which is very common. The primary source of air quality issues in Laos PDR results from the soil transport, stone, sand, building construction, land development for shelters, construction and road maintenance and dirty roads. Besides this, in some areas, air pollution comes from vehicle exhaust, waste burning, agricultural clearance (rice field, garden), factories (steel, concrete, brick) and construction of shops, garages, and smoke from food processing in houses.”

You heard it here first, folks!

Learn about why waste managements and recycling are important for Laos’s continued growth

I’ve also read some CARE reports about causes of pollution in coffee farming. Apparently coffee farmers dry their green coffee beans on plastic tarps and burn the tarps when they’re done. People also burn plastic frequently. (Vientiane produces a lot of plastic waste since there is no clean drinking water available. This results in a lot of plastic water bottles ending up in landfills.) A lot of people burn plastic because trash pickup is expensive, unavailable in their area, or because they don’t know that burning plastic is harmful for the environment. Organizations like CARE and the UNDP are working on raising awareness on the importance of recycling and waste management in rural and urban areas of Laos.

Read about where the plastic waste comes from in Laos

Read about improving waste management systems in Laos

I hope that I see the blue sky again soon. I never noticed it before! I never thought that I would miss it this much.