Complaints about pollution increase

Environmental protection departments nationwide received more than 618,000 tips related to pollution from the public last year, an increase of 135 percent over 2016, with air pollution still topping the complaints.

More than 60 percent of the complaints were lodged through the environment protection telephone hotline 12369, and most were made from provinces in east and central China, with Jiangsu province reporting the most - about 93,000.

The rest were made through the official reporting WeChat account and website, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement on Tuesday.