Beijing Destroys Hundreds of Barbecues in Effort to Reduce Air Pollution

Beijing, a city that at times suffers from dangerous levels of pollution, has found a method, it believes, of solving this problem. The municipal bureau of city administration and law enforcement has decided to create a zero tolerance ban on all open air barbecues in the area within the Fourth Ring Road.

The bureau claims to have identified around 500 locations in the area that are known for their barbecues and intends to clear them all up, before moving on to ban their use across the entire city by the end of 2017.

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During the first three months of this campaign a media officer at the Xicheng disctrict’s administration bureau says that they have confiscated hundreds of barbecue grills, and destroyed more than 300 so that they can never be used again.

The bureau has also imposed fines of a total of 24,000 yuan ($3,938) on 5,400 illegal outdoor barbecue vendors across the city.

Beijing authorities destroying barbecue grills.

Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, explained that “this action will help local residents, but to deal with the bigger air quality problem we need to have priorities and I think one of the major priorities should still be the motor vehicle emissions.”

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In the grand scheme of things barbecues are bit small scale, and local citizens in Beijing are ridiculing the campaign stating that the authorities should be focussing on bigger sources of air pollution via fuel pollution taxes, emergency factory shutdowns, and traffic limits.

The Guardian writes that in order to truly combat the city’s pollution there should be a forced improvement in the quality of gasoline, and some form of emissions control on heavy duty diesel trucks in the city and its surrounding regions.

In October the city’s authorities announced that in the case of dangerous levels of air pollution in the future, emergency measures would be taken to shut down factories and limit traffic levels.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com