Pollutionwatch: ice resurfacing machines can cause poisoning

The machines that ensure smooth ice for athletes can be responsible for air pollution

Watch the live streams from the Winter Olympics and you will see the ice rink resurfacing machines that ensure smooth ice for the athletes. Running any engine indoors is a bad idea, especially in a room full of thousands of spectators and heavily breathing ice-hockey players or skaters. The first case of air pollution problems from ice resurfacers was reported in 1975 when 15 children became ill from carbon monoxide poisoning at a Seattle rink. Nitrogen dioxide was added to the list of concerns when concentrations in the average Finnish rink were found to be more than three times World Health Organisation guidelines. Practical solutions include exhaust clean-up equipment, better ventilation, warming up the resurfacing machine outside and opening the ice rink doors to get faster air changes. Even so, accidents can and do happen. In 2011 two ice hockey players were hospitalised after training in a rink where the ventilation system had failed. A yellow haze had been seen in the cold air that settled over the ice. Thirty one people became ill, some of whom began to cough up blood several days later. The advent of new electric-powered machines offers the best long-term solution to this problem.