Beijing wakes up to clear sky as smog dissipates

Cars with even-numbered license plates were kept off roads, and schools and constructions sites remained shuttered. Over the worst of the bad air days it’s common to see much less activity out on the streets, and for those who are walking or biking around to wear face masks that help alleviate the intake of bad air.

A Beijing resident said an air purifier has been installed in the school with funds raised from parents.

“There is gray fog everywhere”.

“We don’t have air filter at home”. Her son, she said, had been coughing for five days straight. “I am sure smog will be here in the future, too, because this is what is normal”. He journaled his trips from the old lanes to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, recording the date, the weather, the area he vacuumed, and a photo of him doing his work.

An air-quality index posted on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing read 351 on Wednesday night at 6 p.m., meaning PM2.5 levels were still at hazardous levels.

Beijing imposed the red-alert – the highest on a four-color scale – following a forecast of high pollution for three consecutive days.

The safe level had been pegged by the World Health Organization at 25 micrograms per cubic metre.

This comes just after Beijing issued its first ever red alert for smog this week, taking extreme measures which include closing schools, removing half the cars from the road and halting construction in an (not quite) all-out effort to improve the air quality.

Even sales of condoms, sportswear and sport utility vehicles have benefited, according to the latest consumer figures, as Beijing’s first pollution “red alert” entered its second day.

It has persisted despite the Chinese government’s stated priority of cleaning up the legacy of pollution left from years of full-tilt economic growth.

Most of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of coal for electricity and heating – particularly when demand peaks in winter – which is also the key cause of smog.

Hebei province is one of China’s biggest consumers of coal, which authorities blamed for the spike in emissions of PM2.5, or particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers, which triggered this week’s emergency measures.