Polluters face harsher penalties in Beijing

Beijing's environmental protection watchdog handed out harsher punishments to polluters in 2018 in the city's battle to improve its environment.

Fines for fixed pollution emission sources totaled 229 million yuan ($34 million) last year, up 22 percent year-on-year, according to the Beijing ecology and environment bureau.

Li Bin, deputy head of the bureau's environmental monitoring division, said the fines were handed out in 4,929 cases, nearly half involving air pollution.