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Bucket Brigade Introduction


Do you want to know how to find out what you are breathing and if there is a link between pollution and health problems?

The "Bucket Brigade" is a simple, but effective, tool that dozens of communities are using to find out for themselves what chemicals are in the air.  Armed with their own data and information about the health effects of chemicals, these communities are winning impressive reductions of pollution, safety improvements and increasing enforcement of environmental laws.

Photo of Bucket Device
The "Bucket Brigade" is named for a easy to use air sampling device housed inside a 5 gallon plastic bucket.  The "Bucket" was developed in Northern California in 1995 by an environmental engineering firm in order to simplify and reduce the costs of widely accepted methods used for testing toxic gases in the air. Denny Larson, formed the Global Community Monitor in 2002, helped to develop the buckets and has worked with many communities on establishing successful air testing programs.

The Global Community Monitor can help your community start a Bucket Brigade to find out what you are breathing and fight back for clean air.

Find out more about how GCM can help your community monitor and take action. 

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Find out what your air testing results mean

This site is being updated now due to various agencies changing or updating their standards and guidelines.

For EPA Region 6 guidelines for residential exposure click here.

For ATDSR screening levels click here. 

For Texas Effects Screening levels click here.


What the bucket can test for?

 

 New "particle bucket" tests for PM 10 and 2.5 as well as diesel emissions and heavy metals

 Find out about this exciting new addition to our community toolkit.  Contact us to find out how you can start your own particle sampling. West Berkeley PM Monitoring project.

New Monitoring Technologies for Communities

The Bucket Brigade project is leading the way to research the latest in new air monitoring technologies. Read more about our monitoring fairs and the latest equipment.

Real time continuous air monitoring for toxic gases from Argos Scientific, Inc:  www.argos-sci.com

To get the details on toxic gas monitors: Contact: Don Gamiles at Argos: dsgamiles@argos-sci.com  or 404-403-4709.

The Bucket Stops Here


The humble plastic bucket can be used as a toolbox, a planter, or a street-corner drum -- but it also has a higher calling: saving lives.
For the rest of the story, visit:
http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/nijhuis072303.asp

New Bucket Brigade Study:
Community Environmental Policing:
Assessing New Strategies of Public Participation in Environmental Regulation
Download the study Adobe pdf format


Preliminary West Oakland Air Testing Results - JOIN THE COMMUNITY MONITOR TEAM!
The Global Community Monitor (GCM), Students of McCylmond’s High School and the Rose Foundation have been conducting an investigation of pollution in West Oakland. GCM is organizing a Community Monitoring Action Team to conduct more air tests at homes and businesses in the area. We need your help to volunteer to be trained and participate in a variety of monitoring activities.

Media Reports of Canada Chemical Valley Bucket Brigade- Extensive National Coverage!
Aamjiwnaang's environmental committee is calling for stronger industry standards in the wake of new test results showing "alarming" levels of toxic chemicals in the air.

Aamjiwnaang Bucket Brigade discovers alarming levels of toxic chemicals in Sarnia - Results reveal lack of public health standards for toxic air pollution in Canada
SARNIA, ONTARIO, CANADA – Bucket Brigade volunteers from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation have discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in the air adjacent to their reserve near Sarnia, Ontario.

Chennai's Poison Air: Real Time Monitor Tells Toxic Truth!
Global Community Monitor, India Community Environmental Monitor and Argos Scientific have brought a real time air monitor to Chennai, the so-called "IT" Capitol of the world. But as this TV news story reveals, pollution monitoring and control are still in the stone age.

Hinkley tests air to challenge composting plant
“We want to be able to prove that our air here is clean before this thing comes in so we can fight it,” Diaz said. He said that the group is concerned that the regional air board does not test the air directly in Hinkley, instead using a monitoring station in Barstow.

Trailer in West Berkeley to monitor the air near troubled steel foundry
Global Community Monitor, called the air district's trailer a win for the community.``It's a huge victory that the trailer is up, and the community, for the first time, will get an idea of what they are breathing and find out where it's coming from.''

INDIA: Bucket Brigade Strikes Again: High Levels of Carcinogens Found after Manali Gas Leak
Manali, and the areas of North Chennai, are home to most of the city's poor and working classes. Long-standing complaints of pollution in the area have not been taken seriously.

INDIA: Gas leak again; case registered against refinery - Agency Claims Toxic Gases are "safe"
Community Environmental Monitoring calls gases that leaked on 4-5 December from CPCL are likely to be poisonous hydrocarbons with serious long-term implications on health.

Winning Clean Air for Kenya: Bucket Brigades for Environmental Justice!
Since 1974, a pulp mill in Western Kenya has been polluting the air and water in the town of Webuye. Visitors report that the air smells like rotten cabbage and “snowstorms” of foam droplets from the mill’s waste ponds cloud the sky and burn the skin and nose.

First Nations, Canada: Disappearance of indigenous baby boys tied to industrial pollution
In indigenous communities, babies that should be born boys are being born girls. Research released this month of only girls being born

South Africa National Bucket Brigade Training
Citizen activists from all over South Africa converged in Johannesburg, one of the largest cities in South Africa and the country's main center of industry, finance, and commerce and the capital of Gauteng province

Rockland: Groups join forces to gauge air pollution all over Maine
The local campaign against toxicity from diesel train emissions is gathering strength in numbers with help from two international environmental groups that are organizing several Maine communities concerned with their own air pollution.

Better air testing demanded: Volunteers will continue environmental monitoring!
A group of East Chicago residents hope to convince the government to do better air quality monitoring in their neighborhood and will lobby for better pollution control.

Bucket Brigade' Finds Bad Air Near Indiana BP Plant Group Says Sample Of Air Has Unacceptable Levels Of Chemicals
Bessie Dent says she tested air quality near the edge of the BP plant in Whiting, Ind., using a bucket is fitted with a plastic laboratory bag. "Scared. I'm scared for myself, my children and my grandchildren,” said Dent, of Calumet Project for Industrial Jobs.

Third Annual National Bucket Brigade Conference
October 19th, 2006
Community groups from 12 states met in San Francisco October 19-22, 2006 for the Third Annual Bucket Brigade Conference. The groups discussed and shared strategies in their corporate campaigns and attending trainings on various environmental testing methods, including the bucket, swipe tests, and PAH's.



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