Most Polluted Cities in China

The 20 most polluted cities (PM10) in China in the first half of year 2011 are:

1. Lanzhou, Gansu
2. Urmqi, Xinjiang
3. Xi'an, Shannxi
4. Chifeng, Inner Mongolia
5. Hefi, Anhui
6. Yan'an, Shannxi
7. Xining, Qinghai
8. Beijing
9. Yangzhou, Jiangsu
10. Lianyungang, Jiangsu
11. Nanjing, Jiangsu
12. Jinan, Shandong
13. Chengdu, Sichuan
14. Harbin, Heilongjiang
15. Wenzhou, Zhejiang
16. Huzhou, Zhejiang
17. Jining, Shandong
18. Zhengzhou, Henan
19. Ningbo, Zhejiang
20. Yinchuan, Ningxia

As any numbers coming out of mainland China, the number should be swallowed with a grain of salt. Economically developed eastern provinces such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang probably are more confident in releasing more realistic data; and cities within a same province are likely peer-pressured to fix its data to the positive direction.

PM10 is considered an old, obsoleted method of measuring air quality because it ignores small particles in the air, which are the major health concerns. However, the Chinese government did not provide and pragmatically forbid study of smaller pollutants.

The US Embassy in Beijing set up an instrument in its back yard, and release data automatically through Twitter. The reading often went off roof, with 'crazy' (quoted literally from Embassy brief) numbers such as 570. At this time of writing, the figure is 257 and 307 'Hazardous', read from two sensors MetOne BAM 1020 and Echotech EC9810, according to the Twitter account. One interesting observation after studying the Embassy Twitter data is that the worst readings usually came around 1:00 am after midnight, where there were fewest cars on the road. Residents believe it was caused by factories who secretly release chemical waste in the middle of night.

Parents Arrested for Taking Children to Hospital

Parenting has never been easy, it's just more difficult in some places in China under communism regime.

Parents in Sichuan Province were jailed after asking the government to investigate the building quality of those collapsed in the earthquake.

Parents in Hunan Province were jailed after taking their kids to do blood work in hospitals in neighboring areas.

On September 18, 2009, hundreds farmers of Jiahe County, Hunan rented buses to take their kids to Guangzhou to test led level. They had to go to Guangzhou because local government forbade this testing in local hospitals. Because of industrial pollution, about 80% of local children were lead poisoned. Their bus convey were stopped by police officers led by the local Party Legal Secretary LI Ying.

Li Ying told reporters of Xin-Jing Bao (New Beijing Daily), they did nothing wrong to detail the parents because they followed legal procedures, even though they had originally thought the farmers were going to appeal to upper government. Farmers were at fault because they did not inform local government their intention before leaving home. Li said by throwing a small amount farmers in jail, 'the majority of population were thus educated'.

All of the pollution producing companies were owned by officials in local government.

Pig Ban in Dongguan

Dongguan, Guangdong bans pig farming beginning January 1, 2009. The major concern behind the highly controversial decision is said to be the pollution caused by pig defecation. It is no longer a secret that China is suffering a crisis of pork shortage. Pork being the main source of animal protein for most Chinese is touching every normal people's life as gas to commuter Americans. For the first time in many years China imported a sizable load of pork from the US. However the import pork is beyond price range of 99.97% of Chinese people.

In history, pig defecation was not a source of pollution, but rather a key booster for organic agriculture. However, processing pig defecation became a burden for farmers when the price of chemical fertilizer dropped to near zero. Unprocessed pig poops strained the local pollution control effort, which had already been running in the red zone because of the fast growing industries. To the end, it's cheaper for the Dongguan government to purchase pork from other areas, and leaves the precious pollution facilities to industrial growth. A quick Googling dug out an interesting blog about using pig poop to control industrial waste water polluted by heavy metals. Coincidently, the major type of industrial waste in Dongguan is that of heavy metals.

In less than a month, Dongguan people will be cooking pork from some other (remote poor) areas of China, where people don't really care about pollution.

Dongguan, a tiny town unknown to outside Guangzhou 30 years ago, grew into a satellite city of Guangzhou in the 90s, and now a mega-city of more than 10 million people of its own.

Cheap Made-in-China Products Cost Environment

Cheap made-in-China products filled discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target around the US. They are also making the record-high trade deficit between US and China. Although Chinese has a large population with more diligent an better educated workers, but one key factor that contributes to the low manufacturing cost of made-in-China products is the zero liability of environment damage.

Mr. Ma Jun, the director of the Research Institute of Public and Environment, an Non-government organization, provided a list of 33 foreign invested companies, who took advantage the ignorance of environment in the rush to making economic progress in China.

Riding the bureaucracy, corruption, and greedy of local government, these foreign invested companies were able to omit any environment issues they would have to face in their home countries, or practically anywhere else in the world. Not only they enjoy the much looser regulation, if any exist, on environment in China, but also they can get away from ignoring them. Many foreign companies have become the biggest pollution makers in China. Among the list:
Shanghai Panasonic Battery,
Changchun Pepsi;
Shanghai Nestle;
Shanghai 3M;
American Standard;
Shanghai Pizzahut;
Xiamen Noell Crane Systems;
Zhejiang Purolite;
Hunan Yamah

Ma Changbo, Xunan, Investigation of Pollution Produced by Foreign Companies, Nanfang Weekend, Oct 26th, 2006;
China Water Pollution Data Center

Tianjin most dustiest city in China

According to a 2002 World Bank survey of 110 cities around the world (with a total population of 530 million), Tianjin was the most smokest and dustest city in China. It also ranked No. 3 in Asia, and No. 4 in the world.

Most polluted cities in the world

	City population thousands 2005	Particulate matter microgram per cubic meter		Sulfur dioxide microgram per cubic meter 1995-2001	Nitrogen dioxide microgram per cubic meter 1995-2001
		1999	2002
Delhi	15,334	187	177	24	41
Tianjin	9,346	149	139	82	50
Chongqing	4,975	147	137	340	70
Shenyang	4,916	120	112	99	73
Zhengzhou	2,250	116	108	63	95
Lanzhou	1,788	109	101	102	104
Beijing	10,849	106	99	90	122
Taiyuan	2,516	105	98	211	55
Nanchang	1,742	94	87	69	29
Wuhan	6,003	94	88	40	43
Harbin	2,898	91	85	23	30
Changchun	3,092	88	82	21	64
Shanghai	12,665	87	81	53	73
Guiyang	2,467	84	78	424	53
Kunming	1,748	84	78	19	33
Guangzhou	976	74	70	57	136
Urumqi	1,467	61	57	60	70
Dalian	2,709	60	55	61	100
New York	18,498	23	22	26	79
Paris	9,854	15	12	14	57

sources 1, 2, 3