Beijing's air gets clearer in 2019

The air quality in Beijing continually improved during the past year with the density of major pollutants falling significantly, the capital's environmental bureau said on Friday.

In 2019, the average concentration of PM 2.5 in Beijing fell to 42 micrograms per cubic meter, a reduction of 17.6 percent year-on-year and down by 53 percent from 2013, Liu Baoxian, head of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, said at a news conference about last year's air conditions.

Last year's weather conditions were more favorable than the previous years and the city's efforts in different fields also helped to improve its air quality, according to the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, which held the conference on Friday.

Other air pollutants also saw a reduction last year. The annual average density of PM 10 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was 68 and 37 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively, both for the first time reaching the national standard of 70 and 40 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively, Liu said.

Among many measures to cut down pollution, more than 42,000 trucks with high emissions were removed from the roads last year, while over 300,000 new energy vehicles appeared, according to Li Xiang, head of the atmospheric environment department at the bureau.

Nearly 400 polluting companies were closed or relocated and over 40,000 village residents transferred from coal to clean energy for their winter heating, Li said.

As a result, a total of 240 days boasted good air quality in the past year, accounting for 65.8 percent of the whole year, 64 days more than the good days in 2013, Liu said.

Yang Xue, a pregnant woman who lives in Beijing's Dongcheng district, felt the great improvement in her daily life.

"Last winter, I bought an air purifier at home to use it when there were air pollution in the city," Yang said. But the purifier hasn't been used this winter.

"Most of the days in this winter so far were good with better air quality," she said, adding that she goes out for a walk each noon as her exercise, without worrying about harmful smog.

However, the PM2.5, hazardous fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, is still the major air pollutant in the city, exceeding the national standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter by 20 percent, said Liu.

"With the large-scale projects for curbing air pollution completed, there has been little space left for emission reduction," Li with the bureau said.

He added that controlling air pollution is a long-period, arduous and complicated process and the work of fighting air pollution in Beijing has entered a critical stage.

Zheng Jinran contributed to this story.