Environmental geoscientists from the lab of CoE Key Researcher Thilo Hofmann at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna and colleagues from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) have discovered high concentrations of potentially harmful chemicals from the abrasion of climbing shoe soles in the air of bouldering gyms.
Using an impinger, a particle-measuring device that mimics the human respiratory tract, shared first authors Amy Sherman (Uni Wien) and Thibault Masset (EPFL) collected air samples in bouldering gyms in Austria, France, Spain, and Switzerland. The measured levels of air pollution, particularly when many people were climbing in a confined space, were among the highest ever documented worldwide, comparable to multi-lane roads in megacities.
While human health effects remain to be studied, the authors emphasize that better ventilation, cleaning, avoiding peak times, and designing climbing shoes with fewer additives could improve conditions in climbing gyms.