Blue-sky thinking promotes pollution cleanup

Teams have spent the past year rigorously checking implementation of environmental regulations, as Hou Liqiang reports.

In his 10 years as an environmental law enforcement officer, Yin Wei has never known his schedule to be as tight as when he was sent to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster as part of a yearlong program to monitor air pollution control.

During the three weeks he spent in Handan, Hebei province, Yin got up at 6 am but didn't get to bed before midnight. He spent his days inspecting companies, either openly or covertly, and looking for any violations of pollution regulations. "We only had half an hour for lunch," he said, referring to the hectic schedule.