Wake Up and Smell the Pollution

Hong Kong’s air pollution. You know it’s always been there, and you know on some level that you’re breathing bad air every day, but once you get used to it, you kind of forget about it. Until one day, our sky turns completely yellow and a sickly haze literally engulfs us all.

Without the sudden arrival of a severe sandstorm late last month, we might not have had the crucial wake-up call to our worsening air pollution that we desperately need. And though the cloud has lifted, the government still has its head buried in the sand. When faced with the city’s air pollution index (API) hitting an alarming record high of 500, their less than confidence-boosting response was to claim, “It’s really just sand you’re seeing, not pollution.” Considering that this figure was more than double the previous record high API of 202 in July 2008, you would think the government would take bold and decisive action when faced with a truly alarming reading. Perhaps a few announcements outlining a pollution-busting action plan rather than simply blaming sand from the mainland?

So with the sandstorm thankfully behind us, now is a great time to take a good, hard look at the mess we’re in and figure out just how we got here. How bad is our air pollution problem? Can we expect more choking sandstorms? What’s the government going to do about our air pollution woes? We also look into how you can prepare for the next sand storm, and finally, what you can do to help. Hold your breath, and here we go.

What Exactly is in the Air?

There are six pollutants contributing to our bad air: sulfur dioxide, particulate matters, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone and lead. Last year the Air Quality Objectives Review (AQO) was carried out to re-examine and reset the standard acceptable levels for these pollutants. The original guidelines were drawn up in 1987 and based on WHO guidelines of the time. But, rather shockingly, the government chose only to meet WHO’s entry-level standards—which are for developing countries—rather than adopting levels for developed countries.

For example, the proposed annual objective for the pollutant PM10 (particulates of 10 micrometers or less) is 50 μg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), only slightly lower than existing outdated levels of 55μg/m3; while PM2.5, the most dangerous particulate because it is respirable, gets a target of 35μg/m3 (the target for developed countries is 10μg/m3). The objective proposed for sulfur dioxide will be 125 μg/m3, yet the WHO guideline is 20 μg/m3. Mike Kilburn from think tank Civic Exchange says the government only wants to follow the levels for developing countries because it means we’re “allowed” to have dirtier air. This means pollution statistics won’t look so bad and it will seem like we don’t have many bad air days because higher levels of toxic particulates are deemed “acceptable.”

For example, official government data from last year only shows us suffering 40 dirty days, that is, days considered to have excessive pollution levels. If we had to meet WHO guidelines for developed countries our pollution levels would regularly exceed the targets and we’d probably end up with 300 dirty days which would reflect badly in government pollution records. And there is more worrying news. The biggest power company, CLP, recently announced its emissions of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and respirable suspended particulates have increased by six percent, 20 percent and 30 percent respectively. The rise occurred after they lowered the proportion of natural gas in the fuel mix because they were worried gas in the South China Sea might run out in 2012. But in 2008 the mainland government promised power companies in Hong Kong a steady natural gas supply. But until our government builds the pipelines, the power companies will continue to conserve gas and as a consequence, further pollute our air.

Christian Masset of Clear The Air, an environmental NGO that has been advocating the improvement of air quality in Hong Kong since 1997, thinks the government isn’t doing enough to tackle major polluters in the private sector such as the power companies and bus companies. He says: “We have been talking to the government about introducing an ‘agglomerator’ when burning fuel, which is a technology that can cut down 90 percent of respirable suspended particulates. But after a year-and-a-half they still say they need more time to study.”