How clean, or dirty, is the air where you live?

10green-brown-cloudEver wonder how clean, or dirty, the air is where you live?

Wonder no more, at least if you live in the United States.

10green.org, a web site started by an interdisciplinary group of professors and graduate students at the University of Maine, allows you to determine just how clean, or dirty, the air you breathe 24/7 is where you live.

Just enter your zip code or city and state into the ā€˜Whatā€™s your score?ā€™ box on the smartly designed left hand side of 10green.org main page, hit enter, and, voila, you have a very easy to decipher report on the quality of air where you live.

10 air quality categories
In addition to a general score, your individualized air quality report covers 10 categories ā€“ carbon monoxide, large particulates, small particulates, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, carbon dioxide, ā€˜otherā€™ greenhouse gases and ā€˜other pollutantsā€™.

According to the web site, 10Green.org calculates your score using all available measurements during the last year within 100 miles of where you live.

Our air quality here in Aurora, Colo., is no better than that of Los Angeles, Calif., according to 10green.org.

Some of you may want to be prepared for surprisingly bad news. Take our city, Aurora, Colo., for instance. It scores a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.

Our air quality here in Aurora, Colo., is no better than that of Los Angeles, Calif., according to 10green.org. Out of air 10 quality categories, Aurora scores an ā€˜unhealthyā€™ in six: large particulates, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, heavy metals, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases.

Seattle scores highest
The highest score we could find ā€“ and we didnā€™t check every U.S. city ā€“ was a 7. Among the cities earning a 7 rating: Seattle, Wash. and Bellingham, Wash.

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Among the cities that pulled in a 6: Portland, Ore., Burlington, Vt. and Durango, Colo. Among the cities with a 5: Jackson, Wyo., Madison, Wis., Portland, Maine and Blacksburg, Va.,

Finally, hereā€™s a list of some surprises, at least for us. Scoring surprisingly low: Sandpoint, Idaho (3); Missoula, Mont., (3); Lincoln, Neb. (3). Scoring surprisingly high: Atlanta, Ga. (5); Miami, Fla. (5); San Jose, Calif. (5).

We encourage you to check out 10green.orgā€™s free air quality calculator to see how your air quality is.

Finally, we know quite a few of SolarChargedDriving.Comā€™s readers come from outside of the U.S. šŸ™‚ If any of you outside of the U.S. know of a web site similar to 10green.org that helps you determine the air quality in other parts of the world, please let us know!

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