As a resident of Xiaoyi, Shanxi Province, Shi Fengqi recalls the many chimneys that billowed thick dust and smoke as a fact of life.
It was a scene that earned the city a place as one of the 16 most polluted in the province last year - putting it on the State Environmental Protection Administration's (SEPA) blacklist with air quality below Grade III and rendering it unlivable for humans.
Resorting to measures like layering windows with plastic to block out pollutants and particulates were futile, said Shi.
Choking on bad air was common and there was not a single white shirt in his wardrobe, he said.
But things are much better now with the air more breathable and more trees in the city, Shi said.
The city's mayor, Zhang Xuguang, said air quality achieved Grade III for close to 200 days this year. This compared with only 116 for the whole of last year.
The mayor attributes the improvement to the closing of nine pollution-intensive, substandard coking plants since last year.
The city-wide, tree-planting campaign helped in the clean-up too, said Zhang.
But he acknowledged that these were just the first steps to combating pollution.
Constant efforts are needed to prohibit enterprises from polluting the environment.
It does not help that Shanxi, located in China's heavy industrial heartland, is one of the country's most polluted regions.
With an economy based on coal and heavy industry, and faced with scarce water resources, it has regularly ranked low on sustainable development.
But local authorities have risen to the challenge by embarking on green projects to restore "clean water and blue skies" in major cities and areas - Xiaoyi serves as one such example.
The project concentrates on restructuring industry, promoting environment-friendly processes, building a recycling economy, and significantly reducing pollutant emissions from industrial enterprises.
A total of 290 million yuan ($39 million) was earmarked for environment protection last year, a 120 percent increase from the year before, according to a provincial environment watchdog. The sum is being boosted this year.
Local reports said that 3,300 institutions in the province have been shut down because of substandard pollution controls.
Others that fail to meet pollution standards by next year will be closed.
There is also a new system in place to assess officials' responsibility in environmental protection. Under it, pollution control will factor in their performance and career prospects, said Liu Xiangdong, director of the provincial environmental protection bureau.
Source: China Daily
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