Major Source of Beijing Air Pollution Discovered: You

After blaming power plants and factories in Beijing and Hebei province, chuan'r salesmen, and automobiles, a new study appears to have pinpointed a major source of pollution: local citizens who cook at home and use certain fuels for home heating.

Specifically, coal used for cooking and heating are contributors to both air pollution and health problems in households in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei province.

“These benefits would be largest in the winter heating season when severe air pollution occurs,” says Liu Jun of Peking University, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Household emissions, mostly from space heating and cooking with solid fuels, are an important and generally unrecognised source of ambient air pollution in China and other developing countries," Liu says.

A 2013 study cited household pollutants as the cause of 800,000 premature deaths per year, second only to high blood pressure and just above smoking as a cause of death in China.

Daily pollutants could be reduced by 22 percent if cleaner fuels were used for these regular tasks, the study finds.

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Photo: American Progress