The Chinese capital’s fine-particulate pollutant intensity is expected to drop to the internationally recognized safe level of no more than 35 micrograms per cubic meter in 16 years, Pan Tao of the Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection, said. “Improving air quality in the city is not going to be an easy task,” Pan said during the 2014 Beijing International Academic Symposium on Urban Environment in July. The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said that the intensity of PM2.5 in 2013 was 89.5 micrograms per cubic meter－still two and a half times above the standard. The Bureau’s recently released plan said the intensity of PM2.5 is to be reduced to 60 mg/cu m by 2017, which is still harmful to people’s health, but achieving the goal is challenging, Pan said. “The current pollution emission is far beyond the environmental capacity of the city, and any adverse climate condition would easily result in smoggy days,” he added. “The key to current air quality improvement lies in emission reduction.” Many companies in Beijing, especially those with coal-fired boilers and cement plants, have been fined for excessive smoke exhaust, lacking or having faulty emission-monitoring facilities and leaving coal dumps uncovered in the past few months, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said. The amount of sulfur dioxide in Beijing’s air has been reduced by 77% since 1998, while nitrogen dioxide has been cut by 30% and PM10 by 42%.

China should establish emissions inventories for all major port cities as soon as possible to detail pollutants from ships and ports, experts have suggested. These pollutants may account for as much as 20% of the cities’ airborne pollutants. They have also called for the diesel fuel standard for ships to be strengthened to reduce pollution. Ding Yan, Deputy Director of the Environmental Protection Ministry’s vehicle emissions control center, said pollutants generated by ships and the port in Hong Kong contributed more than 50% of the region’s airborne pollution. “The proportion for some major port cities in China can reach as high as 20% to 30%,” Ding said at a seminar of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international non-profit environmental organization. A white paper from the organization on the prevention and control of shipping and port air emissions said pollutants generated by ships and ports include PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The white paper said the amount of PM2.5 emitted by a medium-sized container ship in one day is equivalent to that emitted by 500,000 cars running on diesel. It said 70% of the pollutants are discharged within 400 km of coastlines and can reach up to 2,500 km inland. “China is home to seven of the 10 busiest container ports in the world. The country’s major port cities are also some of the most densely populated cities in the world, posing an even higher risk to public health,” David Pettit, Senior Attorney at the Council, said. He recommended that the central government set up a detailed emissions inventory for each major port city, the South China Morning Post reports.

Reducing traffic in the Pearl River Delta by half could be one of the most effective means of combatting regional smog, according to a cross-border air pollution study. The study highlighted traffic as the major source of a smog-inducing pollutant, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can react with nitrogen oxides (NOx) generated from other combustion sources to form ozone. It concluded traffic-related emissions accounted for 50% of the ambient VOC levels in the region, with petrol exhausts being the biggest single contributor. This conclusion was based on modeling results. The summary of the HKD10 million study on the formation of photochemical smog in the region did not elaborate on how traffic could be halved. It was funded by Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department. The summary also reported that the share of industrial emissions was about 25%.

Thirteen years after Asia’s largest mercury mine closed, people living in China’s “mercury capital” in Guizhou province are still suffering from its legacy. Mining in Wanshan district in Tongren city started 600 years ago, when China’s emperors believed mercury was a vital element of the elixir of life. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government established the Guizhou Mercury Mine Group and began large-scale mining. Reckless mining led to its depletion and closure in 2001. Many unemployed workers could not find another job and some died from silicosis or from mercury poisoning. Mercury production has also polluted the local water and soil. Nearly 6,700 hectares of land in Wanshan have been polluted by mercury residue. The Wanshan government has applied to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) for CNY2 billion to decontaminate 292 hectares of polluted soil, but no decision yet been made.

Beijing became the first Chinese city to impose pollution fees on a new group of airborne pollutants－volatile organic compounds (VOC). “The estimated amount of fees to be collected annually is between CNY1 billion and CNY2 billion, about half of which may come from southwest Beijing’s Fangshan district, where the city’s biggest VOC emitter, Sinopec Beijng Yanshan Co, is located,” said Wang Hailin, Researcher at the Beijing Research Institute of Environmental Protection. Currently, pollution fees are charged for more than 40 types of airborne pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide. VOCs are mainly generated by the petrochemical industry, organic chemical industry, during the production of plastic products, and in the packaging and printing industry. It enhances the oxidation of the atmosphere, which facilitates the forming of more pollutants, and is also a premise for the formation of PM2.5. “China has the largest VOC emissions in the world, and they are also growing quickly,” said Yang Jintian, Dean of the Atmospheric Environment Institute at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning. He said there is no official data for the exact amount of VOC emissions, but they are estimated at about 25 million metric tons a year.