Off the wire
• KMT to elect new chairperson after Eric Chu resigns  • China Focus: Tourism officials chart course for Yangtze development  • 1st LD: Russian airstrikes allegedly kill 3,000 people in Syria since September  • National Winter Games of China opens in Xinjiang  • Trade disputes still affect China's foreign trade: MOC  • Indonesia's volcano eruption forces evacuation as toxic gas clouds spread  • 1st LD Writethru: China, Saudi Arabia agree to set up high-level committee to steer cooperation  • Urgent: Russian airstrikes allegedly kill 3,000 people in Syria since September  • Elite runners gear up for Dubai Marathon 2016  • Latvian president to undergo heart surgery  
You are here: 　 Home

Tianjin's PM2.5 level down 16 pct in 2015

Xinhua, January 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Tianjin Municipality, located in the notoriously smoggy Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, witnessed a nearly 16-percent year-on-year drop in PM2.5 density last year, authorities said Wednesday.

Data released by the Tianjin municipal environmental protection bureau showed that the average density of PM2.5, airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter, was 70 micrograms per cubic meters in 2015, down 15.7 percent year on year. However, it was still twice the national standard.

Sun Ren, chief engineer of the bureau, said the city's air quality has improved, with 220 days reporting air quality meeting the national standard -- 45 days more than in 2014.

Meanwhile, the density of PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide fell by 12.8 percent, 40.8 percent and 22.2 percent respectively, data showed.

Yang Yong, an official with the bureau, said Tianjin has shut down 222 polluting firms and cut burning of coal by five million tonnes last year to optimize the city's energy structure.

Smog has become a major health risk in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Local governments have resorted to restricting traffic and phrasing out backward industries to fight air pollution. The average PM2.5 reading for Beijing also saw a year-on-year drop of 6.2 percent in 2015. Endi