By Zhu Weiwen
Recently, Qin Bo, Deputy Director of Environment Protection Bureau of Hongkou District, accepted an online interview from the official website of Hongkou District, and interacted with citizens on air quality, an issue that citizens showed much concern for. In recent years, air pollution has been a hot topic among citizens. It is learned that in the past year, Hongkou District has established a coordination and promotion committee for environment protection and construction. Based on this platform, various government departments, e.g. the District Environment Protection Bureau, Construction and Transportation Committee, Greenery and Urban Appearance Bureau, the Municipal Public Security Bureau Hongkou Branch and Old House Renovation Headquarter have cooperated with each other, strengthened the efforts of communication and coordination, strictly controlled dust pollution sources from construction sites, municipal engineering construction sites, roads and muck transportation trucks, and demanded rectification if problems had been discovered. In 2014, Hongkou District has made great progress in dust pollution control. The average monthly dust-fall is 6.0 tons/square kilometer. The absolute value of dust-fall has decreased by 34.8% on year-on-year basis. The degree of improvement ranks the first among all districts in Shanghai.
“Dust pollution actually means the concentration of large particles in the air,” said Qin Bo. In recent years, Hongkou District is under rapid economic growth. There are many construction sites in the district, including construction sites for commercial buildings, municipal roads and renovation and demolition projects of old houses, and consequently caused a “concentrated explosion” of dust pollution, which reached a peak value in 2013.
In order to reduce dust pollution, Hongkou District has made “Dust Pollution Control and Management Methods of Hongkou District” and “Emergency Plan of Hongkou District for Severe Air Pollution” from seven aspects: construction site, municipal engineering construction site, demolition site of houses, renovation of houses, road cleaning, muck transportation and greenery planting. The District Construction and Transportation Committee, Environment Protection Bureau and Greenery and Urban Appearance Bureau have intensified their functions and efforts of supervision on units within their jurisdiction.
Currently, construction sites in Hongkou District have met the requirements of laws and regulations on civilized construction, and 95% of construction sites have met the requirements; all engineering vehicles must leave the construction sites after cleaning muck. Solidifying rate of roads on construction sites has reached 100%. Road cleaning projects have been carried out positively. 106 roads in Hongkou District have been kept clean for 24 hours. The cleaning and washing rate of roads has been enhanced from 80% in 2011 to 85% currently.
In 2012, Hongkou District initiated a pilot program of “online dust pollution monitoring”. Since the end of 2013, Hongkou District further intensified the “online system” as a key task and promoted it to all construction sites in the district. The District Environment Protection Bureau cooperated with the District Construction and Transportation Committee and held conferences for all projects under construction in the district, demanded all construction sites with deep foundation pits to install “online monitoring equipment”. So far, this system has been installed in 20 construction sites, and this system will be used until the date of structural roof-sealing of all buildings.
Some roads and house demolition sites do not have walls around them and have not installed online monitoring equipment for “positioning”. In 2014, the District Environment Monitoring Station installed a mobile online particle monitoring system on a vehicle for patrolling on all major roads in the district. In each month, this monitoring vehicle will patrol in areas nearby 29 major roads or house demolition sites in the district, collect dust pollution data and video materials and real-time transmit them to the mobile terminals of monitoring staffs. After data was produced, management will be strengthened on construction sites. Rankings will be given to monitoring data of various construction sites for strengthening management on them.
Hongkou District has taken measures to handle dust pollution in construction sites for renovation projects of old houses. According to the requirements on dust pollution control in renovation and demolition construction sites, when demolishing houses with machinery, operators must control dust pollution by using high-pressure water spraying facilities; when demolishing houses with human labor, they must not spray water with mechanical device for preventing safety accidents. When demolishing houses with human labor, constructors should put wire meshes around the house to reduce dust pollution as much as possible.