Changchun, capital of Northeast China's Jilin province, has taken measures to ensure good air quality, even on cold winter days.

October 20 was the first day this year the city started to provide central heating for the winter. In the morning, air quality supervision showed the city's air quality to be "excellent", primary pollutant figures stood at "none", and environmental air quality was "satisfactory", suitable for "normal outdoor activities among all kinds of people".

Seeing the good results, local resident Wang decided to go to the park to square dance with her friends.

"Previously, when it came to central heating season, there was often a suffocating smoke smell in the air, which was unsuitable for square dancing," said Wang. "Clear air and sky brings happy minds."

This autumn and winter many Changchun residents have noticed more blue skies and less smog. Statistics from Changchun's environmental monitoring center show that within the first month after the city started providing central heating, there were 21 days with "excellent" air quality, 11 days more than last year.

According to the Changchun government's information office, it is the direct effect of the city's efforts to comprehensively prevent and manage pollution and stop crop straw burning.

The administration considered crop straw burning a key source of pollution.

The city produces around 1,300 metric tons of crop straw annually. About 32 per-cent of the whole city's crop straw used to be discarded, according to Kong Lingbo, director of the regulation division of the city's agriculture commission. Thirty three percent of the straw was used as fuel and the other 35 percent for other uses. In October, the Changchun Party committee passed a policy to comprehensively use crop straw throughout the city, instead of burning the leftovers.

The city also rolled out a series of other measures to alleviate air pollution.

One is to use clean energy. The city demolished 922 coal-fueled furnaces and replaced them with gas, electricity and wastewater heat pumps.

Another move was to eliminate pollution-heavy vehicles, also known as yellow-plate vehicles. A system was set up to remove 15,000 such vehicles from the roads this year, with 84,000 being removed in the past three years.

The city government recently issued strict new requirements concerning pollution and dust control in industries and companies. Some 1,031 furnaces that previously did not meet proper pollution standards were dealt with. All coal-fueled power generators of more than 200,000 kilowatts have been renovated to meet emission requirements. Changchun No 1 and No 2 cogeneration power plants have gone through low-pollution emission renovations. Some 889 large-scale food and drink enterprises also installed fume purification facilities. Some 98 percent of construction sites reached pollution standards.

Finally, the city has been monitoring time taken for management of environmental pollution cases and holding related persons responsible.

As a result, the city's air quality has shown visible improvement. In the first 11 months of the year, there were 264 days with excellent or good air quality, 47 more days than the same period last year. There were 61 pol-luted days, 46 days less than last year.

liumingtai@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/16/2016 page10)