Beijing Creates Anti-smog Police to tackle Air Polluters

Air pollution is a common problem all over the world, with technology taking over and people using technology to take over daily tasks, it has meant that more pollution is been added into our atmosphere. Having a disastrous effect not only on the environment but our health.

In Beijing, they have released a force which will patrol streets looking for rules violations including open-air barbecues, rubbish burning and dusty roads in a bid to reduce the amount of pollution in the air. Beijing will create an environmental police force aimed at tackling deadly smog, after the Chinese capital spent the first week of 2017 mostly shrouded by thick haze of pollution.

The new law enforcement outfit will patrol the streets, eyes peeled for open-air barbecues, trash burning and dusty roads that violate regulations, the city's acting mayor Cai Qi said at the weekend.

Beijing will also shut its last coal-fired power plant and reduce coal consumption by 30% this year, Cai said according to state media. Officials will shut 500 factories and 300,000 older vehicles will be taken of the road. The capital is frequently beset with toxic smog and levels of harmful air pollution in 2015 were more then eight times those recommended by the World Health Organisation.

China declared a "war on pollution" in 2014, but has struggled to deliver the sweeping change many had hoped to see and Government inspections routinely find pollution's flouting the law.

But Beijing's new police squad may do little to help residents breathe easy.

Its focus on local, street-level pollution ignores the steel factories and coal-fired power plants just outside the city limits in neighbouring Hebei province, or the more than 5m cars clogging the roads. Cars account for about 31% of the most harmful type of air pollution, according to China's environmental ministry.

Beijing education authorities did bow to public pressure last week, agreeing to install air purifiers in school classrooms after more than a year of campaigning by concerned parents.

A study earlier this year found acrid air is linked to at least one million deaths a year in China, and contributed to a third of all facilities in major cities, on par with smoking. Another research paper said the smog had shortened life expectancies by five and a half years in parts of China.

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