Serious air pollution

by Kotaro Shigeta
(Koiwa, Tokyo)

China has a serious environmental problem. It is air pollution.

The dead expected to be affected by the minute particulate matter "PM2.5" discharged from coal-fired power plants went up to 9900 persons in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei Province in 2011, and a total of 70,000 people have damaged health and were treated in the hospital.

Coal power plants within the capital region caused up to 9,900 premature deaths in the region in 2011, with nearly 2,000 deaths in Beijing, 1,200 in Tianjin and 6,700 in Hebei. The coal power plants within the region caused 850 deaths from lung cancer, 190 cases of infant deaths, and increase the amount of children suffering from asthma by 9,300 and number of people with chronic bronchitis by 12,000.

And these toxic substances are caught by westerlies and travel to Japan. So it is not just a Chinese problem, but is becoming a Japanese problem as well.

As a result, Japanese companies are providing China with the equipment which filters the gas which comes out from a coal-fired power plant, and equipment which treats coal without worsening the environment.