Beijing Pledges to Cut Off Sources of Dust Pollution by End of June

Beijing will take drastic move to eliminate the sources of dust, so as to reduce the amount of dust people breathe in everyday. Wang Guangtao, deputy mayor of Beijing, instructed that all work-sites where construction has not started for the time being must be afforested by the end of June, idle work-sites which refuse to plant trees shall be taken back by district and county governments concerned and shall be turned into lawns put under the management of gardening departments.

Dust is the main pollutants of Beijing. The floating dust weather occurred on March 18 was caused by dust on the work-sites. With more projects started construction one after another, particles have become the main factors for Beijing's air pollution. According to the traditional ways of construction, houses are first built, followed by road construction and finally green land is completed as planned. The vast open area on the construction sites can easily cause huge amounts of floating dust. Especially work-sites, where construction has been delayed for several years after the demolition of houses, make it more difficult to eliminate the source of dust.

Wang Guangtao urged all districts and counties to mark every piece of exposed land on the map and make environment protection plans. Enclosing board must be set up around the construction sites and effective measures must be taken to supervise and prevent dust. For the building sites where construction has not started yet, a time limit should be set for reforestation, penalty should be meted out to work units which fail to complete reforestation. Idle work-sites, which refuse to make the area green, shall be taken back by the government for reforestation.

Environment protection authorities set a new target on March 21: the number of days in which the air pollution index stands at or above Grade 2 in the whole year should exceed 45 percent. However, last year, such days accounted for only one-third.

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