Air quality in major parts of China was better in April than in March, with dust and ozone accounting for a larger proportion among the key pollutants, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). The statistics show that air quality in 74 Chinese cities met national standards 70.6% of the time in April, an improvement over March’s 62.3%. The number of cities scoring above 80% also rose, from 22 in March to 29 in April. In contrast with the progress made by the 74 major cities as a whole, air quality in the most-polluted area－the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province cluster－got slightly worse in April. Nine cities out of the 13 in this region appeared on the list of the top 10 cities with the worst air quality. The number in March was seven. As the seasons changed, PM2.5 was not as dominant among pollutants in April as in March. For the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province cluster, PM2.5 was still responsible for most of the days with bad air quality. But the proportion of polluting days caused mainly by PM10, which are larger particles, rose by 10 percentage points in this region from March to April. The region has entered the season when sand dust becomes common, Zhang Mingying, Senior Engineer from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, said. In the hotter and more humid cities in the Pearl River Delta, ozone became the top pollutant in April, accounting for 73.7% of the bad-air days. In March, more than 85% of high-pollution days were caused by PM2.5. The 10 cities with the worst air quality in April were Xingtai, Tangshan, Shijiazhuang, Handan, Baoding, Qinhuangdao and Langfang, all in Hebei province; Jinan in Shandong province; and Tianjin and Beijing, the China Daily reports.

Urban planners in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, have been working on a plan to direct airflows into the city through six green corridors connected to six nearby lakes to reduce heat waves and curb pollution. The project targets a temperature reduction of at least 1 degree Celsius in the city’s downtown areas during summer. Many other Chinese cities that are plagued by heatwaves and smog are watching closely to see if the move can be duplicated. “Large cities like Beijing are more and more frequently covered by smog, mainly due to still air conditions, and building green corridors to let breeze flow through can alleviate the issue,” said Xu Hao, Dean of the College of Resources and Environment Science at the Agricultural University of Hebei. Urban planning authorities in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and Nanjing, Jiangsu province, have also launched studies in building such corridors to ease air pollution. Yu Zhuang, Professor at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said that the Wuhan model is successful in lowering temperatures and fighting pollution, but he added that not all cities might be able to apply the same method. “Wuhan is surrounded by lakes, which are crucial in wind flowing from water to land, but the model might not be successfully duplicated in Beijing, with mountains on three sides,” Yu said. Still, many believe that for cities along the Yangtze River, Wuhan sets an example. Chongqing and Nanjing, both situated along the Yangtze, are the other two “furnaces” of China that have oppressively hot and humid summers. The green corridors in Wuhan cover 2,390 square kilometers, about 27% of its urban area. Building density is required to be less than 10% in the corridor region. Buildings in the corridors must also be less than 10 meters tall and the vegetation rate must be above 50%, according to the city’s Land Resources and Planning Bureau.

Beijing will move 300 heavy polluting firms out of the capital before October to reduce smog and speed up industrial reform. The companies, which have high water and energy consumption, include construction material and furniture manufacturers. “These factories and companies will be relocated to nearby cities or regions after technology upgrading and product restructuring,” said Zhang Boxu, Director of the Beijing Commission of Economy and Information Technology. Beijing authorities say 288 enterprises were moved out of the capital in 2013, which help the city to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 7,000 tons. However, the capital’s air quality in 2013 did not improve. The average index for PM2.5 reached nearly 90 micrograms per cubic meter last year, exceeding the national standard for good air by 156%. Beijing authorities are also drawing up guidelines to encourage polluting enterprises to move out and are cracking down on illegal plants that cause pollution. Yang Fuqiang, Senior Adviser at the National Resources Defense Council, said Beijing’s plants should be moved to China’s western or central areas to enable fast economic development.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) is considering a new policy to boost its use of private contractors to let the market play a greater role in easing the country’s pollution. It calls for local governments to commission services from private firms, including sewage treatment, waterway clean-ups, national park maintenance, remediation of contaminated soil and pollution monitoring. The contracts would be arranged through public tender. Details of the new policy are to be released this month. The final payment would be based on the results achieved through the services, making government spending on cleaning up the environment more efficient. Government spending on environmental protection and energy conservation totaled CNY180 billion last year. The Ministry of Finance has called for a 16.7% increase in spending to CNY210 billion this year. Environmental experts say China needs to spend between 2% to 3% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) on fighting pollution. Current levels of spending are far from adequate and even the money that is being spent is not well managed. The National Audit Office (NAO) said in June that CNY1.6 billion of government expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection had been misused or embezzled in 2011 and 2012. Lin Shuanglin, Professor of Public Finance at Beijing University, said the public bidding process could invite corruption unless the process was properly supervised.

Chinese Customs reported 221 instances of smuggling involving solid waste last year, a three-fold increase from 2012. Authorities confiscated 976,500 metric tons of illegal waste material last year, an increase of 150% from 2012. “Our intensified efforts and huge price differences for waste disposal between China and some developed countries contributed to the sharp increase in discoveries of solid waste being smuggled into China,” said Xu Wenrong, Deputy Director of the General Administration of Customs. The high cost of waste disposal has pushed some developed countries to discard their waste in developing countries, where illicit importers sort the material for large profits, he said. The imported solid waste includes recyclable and non-recyclable materials. Recyclable items include discarded steel and iron, which may be imported with the relevant permits. Non-recyclable items range from coal slag, chemicals and electronic waste to old clothes, building materials and medical waste. Imports of these are strictly prohibited. “The smuggling of foreign trash seriously pollutes the environment and brings great harm to public health,” Xu said. Smugglers collude with their overseas counterparts, who declare the items as “other articles” to pass customs checks. The items are sometimes hidden in other cargo and sent across porous borders, such as those between China and Vietnam, the China Daily reports.