Heilongjiang province in Northeast China announced its intentions to strengthen policies on the prevention of air pollution in 2018 at a press conference held by the Department of Environmental Protection of Heilongjiang on March 8.

As stated in this year’s targets that aim at prefecture-level or above cities in the province, the number of days with good air quality should not account for less than 87.3 percent of the year. For its capital city Harbin, the average concentration of PM2.5 should not be higher than 53 micrograms per cubic meter; and the number of days with heavy air pollution should not exceed 21 days.

To achieve this goal, Heilongjiang will partner with Jilin province to establish a cross-area air pollution control and prevention mechanism, involving the cities around Harbin and Changchun.

Additionally, Heilongjiang plans to gradually phase out coal-fired boilers that have a working capacity of less than 20 steaming tons per hour. It pushes the reform of central heating forward by requiring the switch to be from coal to gas or electricity.

Additionally, all the stationary sources of air pollution will be monitored through the online monitoring equipment connected to the Heilongjiang environmental protection department. The department will release air pollution alerts according to the data received and analyzed.

 A large-scale coal-fired boiler releases pollutants into the air.[Photo/Chinanews.com]

A worker adds fuel to a reformed boiler, which provides central heating to Harbin residents.[Photo/Chinanews.com]