| Earlier this month, the Beijing
government started informing the public about a hazardous form
of air pollution as the population geared up for a new year
firework frenzy that would see the skies filled with chemicals
and particulates on Sunday (22nd Feb) night.
The Chinese capital's environmental authorities succumbed
to public demands for transparency by publishing hourly readings
of PM2.5, tiny particulates released
by car exhausts and factory chimneys that raise the risks
of lung diseases, heart problems and dementia.
The municipal government promised earlier in the month that
it would release this sensitive data before the start of the
spring festival, which ushered in the year of the dragon on
Monday (23rd).
After weeks of thick smog, the launch on Saturday (21 Feb)
coincided with clear blue skies due to sharp winds, the festive
closure of factories and a lack of traffic on the roads.
The city monitoring centre's website said it was publishing
data from a measuring station about four miles west of Tiananmen
Square for "research purposes". The initial PM2.5
reading at noon on Saturday was 0.015 milligrams per cubic
metre, which would be classified as a healthy level in the
US and Europe.
However, there was some discrepancy with data tweeted by
the longer established @BeijingAir
account of the US embassy's monitoring station in
the north-east of the city, where the reading was a less heartening
'moderate'.
Many remain sceptical. Steven Andrews, an environmental consultant
who has studied Beijing's pollution data since 2006, told
Associated Press he was "already a bit suspicious"
of Beijing's PM2.5 data. Within the
24-hour period to noon on Saturday, Beijing reported seven
hourly figures "at the very low level" of 0.003 milligrams
per cubic metre.
"In all of 2010 and 2011, the US embassy reported values
at or below that level only 18 times out of over 15,000 hourly
values or about 0.1% of the time," said Andrews. "PM2.5
concentrations vary by area, so a direct comparison between
sites isn't possible, but the numbers being reported during
some hours seem surprisingly low."
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Readings everywhere surged for a few hours on Sunday
night (22nd), when millions of Beijingers unleashed
a celebratory firestorm, despite environmentalists'
calls for people to use rockets, sparklers and firecrackers
more sparingly.
Wang Qiuxia, of the Darwin Nature Knowledge Society
NGO, said the air quality in many Chinese cities deteriorated
sharply every New Year's Eve.
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He joined other activists in launching an online campaign
for a "green new year" - that urged people to save the money
they would spend on fireworks and donate it to civic groups
so they can buy pollution-monitoring devices.
Measuring PM2.5, which is finer than
the width of a human hair, requires sensitive equipment that
costs at least 25,000 yuan (£2,500).
Others demand tougher actions. The author, Zheng Yuanjie,
has used his Sina Weibo microblog to press the Beijing government
to resume a ban on fireworks inside the fifth ring road. Others
suggest the city should stage a single spectacular display
- as Hong Kong does - rather than allowing millions of individuals
to fire off starbursts and fire showers.
The municipal environmental monitoring centre acknowledges
the problems caused by pyrotechnics. A spokesperson, Liang
Xiyan, said fireworks increased levels of PM2.5
and released harmful substances, such as magnesium, copper,
cesium and strontium that accumulate in the alveoli and can
cause illnesses in sensitive patients. Doctors also report
a rise in asthma cases on New Year's Day.
The explosives also create a mountain of rubbish. According
to the city environmental sanitation department, 58 tonnes
of used fireworks were picked off Beijing's streets during
the new year festival in 2011.
The city had started to rein in the most environmentally
unfriendly pyrotechnics with an ordinance last September that
banned the biggest and most complex fireworks.
There are also appeals for people to use alternatives. Zhao
Shu, the director of Beijing Folk Culture Association said
electric firecrackers would be a good substitute.
"We don't want to discard this important Chinese tradition,
but folk culture needs to move with the times. Traditions
should be combined with advanced technology," he said.
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