Indoor Air Quality in the Control Tower of Athens International Airport, Greece

In recent decades the air quality in Athens city has been extremely poor. Scientific interest has focused on health effects caused by indoor air pollution, due to the fact that most people in the developed world spend most of their time indoors, especially in office settings. Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds and benzene are important pollutants that can affect indoor air quality. Measurements conducted inside the Control Tower of Athens International Airport have shown that despite the fact that concentrations never exceeded the established limits for indoor environments, all pollutant concentrations determined were significantly higher than those outdoors. This indicates contributions from indoor sources such as smoking, carpets, furniture and human emanations including breathing and body odour. Benzene levels found in the employees’ exposure experiments were particularly noticeable and proved that smoking was a major indoor pollution source.