Meat producers’ bacon saved as steel plant blamed for smog
Print Edition
THE closure last month of several meat-smoking factories in Dazhou, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, failed to resolve the city’s air pollution problems.
Despite a crackdown on the industry — with a particular focus on the producers of smoked bacon — the acrid smog remains, thepaper.cn reported yesterday.
Rao Bing, deputy head of the city’s environmental protection bureau, was in no doubt that the popular food was to blame for the city’s air pollution woes, and promptly ordered the closures.
It was only after the air quality index (AQI) figures failed to show any improvement that a pollution prevention official suggested that the real culprit was perhaps the city’s resident industrial giant, Dazhou Steel Group.
The unnamed official was quoted as saying that the bad air quality was more probably a result of industrial pollution, and that as the city’s biggest energy consumer the steel corporation was the prime suspect.
Officials were prompted to tackle the air pollution situation when they noticed that the AQI appeared static above 200. On several days it surpassed 470.
The attack on bacon smokers caused much controversy in the city, as the industry dates back hundreds of years and locals consider sizzling rashers a culinary staple.
Though the smoking process does have some impact on air quality, a study conducted by a nongovernmental environment group at a dozen plants showed it to be minimal and localized.
Dazhou Steel, meanwhile, employs 7,000 people and produces about 3.5 million tons of pig iron every year. It also contributes about 50 percent of the government’s fiscal revenue.
An air quality monitoring site close to the plant consistently reports the worst air quality in the city, the report said, without providing a source. Several plans to relocate the steelmaker have been discussed in recent years, though the city government has yet to announce a timetable for such a move.
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