According to data released in September by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, from January to August this year, the average number of days with good air quality in 337 prefecture level and above cities in China was 86.7%, with an increase of 5.0% on a year-on-year basis. PM2.5 (tiny particulate matter) concentration was 31 micrograms / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 11.4%. PM10 (inhalable particulate matter) concentration was 53 micrograms / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 13.1%. ozone concentration was 142 micrograms / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 4.1%. Sulfur dioxide concentration was 10 micrograms / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 9.1%. The concentration of nitrogen dioxide was 22 micrograms / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 12.0%. The concentration of carbon monoxide was 1.3 mg / m3, a year-on-year decrease of 7.1%.
The World Environment Day this year, a familiar picture to Foshan people - Shunde Lunjiao Jizhou, the heron paradise made the headline on the front page of Xinhua Net. The continuous improvement of ecological environment has attracted herons to breed and inhabit, which is also reflected in the change of data. Last month, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment announced the air quality of 168 key cities across the country in the first eight months of this year, and Foshan made it to the list of the top 20 rank. In the process of Foshan's green development, there are high-rise buildings rising from the ground, and there are idyllic landscapes and birds singing. This manufacturing city is dedicated to making a balance between modern development and ecological environment, allowing people to enjoy the blue sky while living in the concrete city.
As a traditional industrial city, it is not easy for Foshan to embark on the path of ecological revolution. Instead of giving up, Foshan took initiative. It took the lead in setting up an environmental protection committee in the whole province and successively promulgated and implemented two local regulations in the field of air pollution prevention and control.
To protect the environment is to protect the productive forces; to improve the environment is to develop productivity. This simple truth is being proved in Foshan. As a famous manufacturing city in China, Foshan's total economic volume broke through the trillion yuan mark for the first time in 2019. At the same time, the ecological environment of Foshan City continued to improve. Key indicators such as PM2.5 and SO2 concentrations dropped to new lows. The water quality assessment of the provincial-level river sections of the Guangfo (Guangzhou-Foshan) cross-border river has fully met the standard, and the city's economic and social development and ecological environmental protection have shown a good situation of complementing each other and getting better.
To make ecological environmental protection in a manufacturing city, what exact actions has Foshan (government & industries/companies) taken?
At night, a blue truck was driving on the road, black smoke emitted from the rear of the vehicle, and it drove out of the monitoring range in just a few seconds. However, this scene was recorded by the electronic capture system. In May this year, Foshan issued the first ticket for "black smoke vehicle" breaking the ban at night. The blue truck was fined 200 yuan and 3 points were deducted from the driver’s license.
Vehicle exhaust control is an important part of air pollution control. Since November 1, 2017, Foshan has banned vehicles that emit black smoke from passing through the city's administrative areas. Based on the limit of technology and equipment, law enforcement departments initially could catch the vehicles that emit black smoke only in the daytime.
This year, Foshan upgraded its electronic capture system for "black smoke cars" and introduced AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, which successfully broke through the technical bottleneck and realized night capture. Even in the early hours of the morning, when there is little light, the "black smoke vehicle" electronic capture system can take high-definition pictures and videos to capture and collect evidence of the "black smoke vehicle" whose exhaust emission is not up to the standard, and then the intelligent algorithm of the system will automatically identify the "black smoke vehicle". The evidence will be handed over to the public security department for punishment after being reviewed by the backstage technicians.
The feature of electronic black smoke capture technology is that it can capture the black smoke emission of road vehicles in real time. The monitoring results are intuitive and effective, and the efficiency of forensics is more than 30 times higher than that of manual detection. The relevant person in charge of the municipal ecological environment bureau said that through the 24-hour intelligent capture detection, the breakthrough from manual detection to technical detection was realized.
According to statistics, Foshan has built a total of 119 capture spots. From January to August, a total of 1,079 black smoke violations of traffic restrictions were captured and fined.
When you enter Foshan Xiongfeng Automobile Group Co., Ltd., you can see the dry grinding area, sheet metal area, spray painting area and other functional areas at a glance. The spray paint room collects exhaust gas in a closed way, and the surrounding air is not pungent. In August this year, the center was officially put into trial operation to provide spraying service for small automobile repair enterprises within 5 km around the center.
After the opening of the shared center, the use of high-efficiency environmental protection equipment results in that spray painting exhaust gas being effectively controlled. The general manager of the center, introduced that the facilities provided by repair garages usually had low treatment efficiency in the past, but now the shared sheet spray center has adopted activated carbon adsorption desorption catalytic combustion treatment technology, and the exhaust emission is far lower than the national environmental protection emission standards.
This is one of the operational plans for Foshan to keep the good environment. At present, ozone pollution has become the primary factor affecting the air quality in Guangdong Province. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are important precursors of ozone formation and are particularly critical in atmospheric treatment. Therefore, from an enterprise to an industry, Foshan has successively issued a comprehensive renovation plan for VOCs in the industries of furniture manufacturing and motor vehicle maintenance where small and medium-sized enterprises gather.
At the same time, Foshan has innovated its VOCs governance mode, promoted the shared painting mode in key industries, and successively built 3 furniture shared painting centers and multiple centralized spraying centers for the automobile repair industry. In addition to the regional centralized spraying center, the city no longer accepts applications for the filing of new, rebuilt, and expanded auto repair companies that use oil-based paint to carry out painting operations, so as to reduce volatile organic compound emissions from the source.
In May this year, Chancheng District innovatively proposed Off-peak Green Production management measures in the city, encouraging auto repair companies to implement volatile organic compound emission processes (spray painting processes) for off-peak production. The painting time can be adjusted from 18:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. of the next day in the companies. This move has been widely recognized by enterprises in the area, and they have signed the enterprise commitment letter of Off-peak Green Production" and implemented it.
Not long ago, Guangdong Datang International Foshan Cogeneration Project (hereinafter referred to as Datang Thermal Power Project), located next to Haitian Avenue in Gaoming District, has made new progress. It is reported that the company's project is the first natural gas cogeneration project approved by the group company in the economically developed areas of the Pearl River Delta, which has been listed in the 2020 key construction project plans of Guangdong Province and Foshan City. The project is divided into two phases. The project is constructed in two phases. The first phase of the project has started and is expected to be put into use in January 2022, and the second phase is in preparation.
Datang Foshan Thermal Power Co., Ltd. said that after the first phase of the project is completed and put into operation, it can provide 3.8 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity and 4.9 million GJ of heat supply each year, which can not only meet the rapid growth of electricity demand in Gaoming District, but also meet the heat demand of Cangjiang Industrial Park and surrounding enterprises. It can also replace the high pollution and low efficiency decentralized heating small boilers in the region, and improve the regional air quality. It is of great significance to protect the ecological environment, promote the construction of ecological civilization and the construction of resource-saving and environment-friendly society.
Most of people stay indoor when they work. Then what about the indoor air quality? Innovation helps better our life. As a frequent visitor to the Canton Fair, Guangdong Weiye Aluminum Factory Group Co., Ltd. in the online Canton Fair this year mainly promoted door, window and curtain wall products that can “breathe”. This products are suitable for hospitals, office buildings, schools and other places with dense flow of people. They can automatically adjust according to indoor air quality without opening windows, and filter PM2.5 at the same time when fresh air is inhaled.
From 2018 to 2020, the whole city has invested 4.8 billion yuan for a forest city construction. Up to now, the forest coverage rate of Foshan City is 37.36%. The urban green coverage rate is 45.64%. The green park area per capita is 18.19 square meters. The proportion of arbor planting is 75.91%, and the coverage rate of tree crown on the streets is 41.81% (Crown coverage is the percentage of total tree crown area and land area within a region).
Air is crucial to all lives, and good air quality also takes an important part in health. Effort should be made to keep the environment green and clean. After all, to protect the environment is to protect ourselves.
