Macau (MNA) – The city’s air quality has been a major concern of many people over the years, but especially during the winter season when the territory’s glitzy landscape is shrouded in heavy smog.
Last month, the winter monsoon drove air pollutants from the north to the south, with residents suffering a few smog filled days, but according to Ho Wai Tim, president of the Macau Ecological Society, ‘bad air quality in Macau is actually a normal phenomenon in the winter.’
In addition to the northern pollutants from the north, ‘the emissions from over 240,000 vehicles here also lead to secondary pollution under sunlight, or photochemical pollution.’
In the Environmental Protection Bureau’s (DSPA) 2017 report on the State of the Environment in Macau, it states that ‘various types of transportation and the local production of electricity remain the major sources of atmospheric pollutant.
DSPA has yet to release a report on the air condition of last year, but the 2017 report claims that the number of ‘good’ and ‘moderate’ air quality days accounted for over 92 per cent of the total number of monitored days in 2017, a slight decrease from 2016.
Cheong Sok Leng, the vice president of local think tank Collective Wisdom Policy Centre, pointed out that the concentration limit of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Macau is set at an annual level of 35 μg per cubic metre, a number that is much higher than the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard of 10 μg per cubic metre.
The Macau SAR government has not pledged any regular review of the concentration limits that were last updated in 2012, nor has the latest Policy Address revealed amendments to the standards.
However, exhaust emission standards and management practices for cement factories were established in 2014, while the setting up of exhaust emission standards for sewage plants, pharmaceutical and plastic processing plants took place in December of last year.
Read more about this issue in this month’s edition of Macau Business Magazine.
