Beijing artist sells a glass jar of fresh French air at auction for $860. The move signifies the problems with Beijing air quality.

Can we put a price tag on something as invaluable as fresh air? Apparently, yes. And it happened.

Beijing-based artist Liang Kegang auctioned off a small glass jar filled with fresh air from Province, France. And the going price? $860.

While on a recent trip to the south of France, Liang couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a statement in response to the detrimental state of Beijing’s air quality issue. He photographed himself ‘filling’ the ‘clean south of France air’ into the jar on March 29, 2014. The jar sold at an auction on March 30 to Chengdu-based artist and entrepreneur Li Yongzheng.

Beijing, a city home to twenty-one million people, is one of the world’s most polluted cities. Extremely highs levels of thick smog constantly pose serious health issues to Beijing’s citizens. As the chart below shows, since April 2008, there has only been 184 days total where air quality levels were considered good.

Six years of Beijing air pollution summed up. image: Quartz

“Air should be the most valueless commodity, free to breathe for any vagrant or beggar,” Liang said in an interview. “This is my way to question China’s foul air and express my dissatisfaction.”

featured image: Sunset Noir and Home Naturals

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Air pollution in China is so bad, we all believed it when the Internet claimed Beijing residents had to watch the sunrise on television. That story turned out to be a fraud, but the pollution that inspired it is real, and headed for America.

Over the weekend, I was appalled by a post in my Facebook feed. It was an article published by the UK’s Daily Mail featuring what has become a familiar scene over the past few years: Beijing smothered in smog. What made this image different was the massive LED television screen. The article claimed that pollution was now so severe in Beijing that residents now watch radiant sunrises broadcast on a huge screen in Tiananmen Square. Like this:

The Internet went crazy, and the article was reposted and shared by some of the biggest media outlets. Within 24 hours (as is often the case) those willing to dig a bit deeper exposed it as a fraud. While Tiananmen Square does indeed have a massive television screen, it’s purpose isn’t to provide pixelated vitamin D–the image that had everyone in an uproar was just a moment in a longer commercial meant to promote tourism. Just because this story was blown way out of proportion doesn’t mean air pollution in China really isn’t as bad as we thought, however. It is. Maybe even worse.

Just days after the fake sunrise story went viral and then fizzled, the Guardian (a much more reputable UK news outlet), reported on a new study that found air pollution in China isn’t staying in China. In fact, it’s traveling in large quantities across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. West Coast, increasing the number of smog days for Americans.

“We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” study co-author Steve Davis, a scientist at University of California Irvine, said in the Guardian article

“Between 17 and 36% of various air pollutants in China in 2006 were related to the production of goods for export, according to the report, and a fifth of that specifically tied to US-China trade.”

Though we criticize China for its lack of environmental regulation, we’re actually a big part of the problem. The United States imports a massive amount of Chinese goods, from electronics to food. We’re the customer who demands cheaper goods faster, and like a good supplier, China has done whatever it must to please us. Even if it means polluting its own air and soil.

So though air pollution in China has not yet made fake sunrises a necessity, it very well could in the future. And if China loses its ability to see the sun, our own line of sight won’t be very far behind.

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Image: fungleo

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Overloaded by trash, the city tries an unusual method to combat the smell. Next strategy? Perhaps recycling.

Article by Kathy Ehrich Dowd and image by Th145 via Wikimedia Commons. First published March 2010 at Tonic.com.

Stinky landfills are a bit like stinky armpits – only a whole lot bigger. And what do we do when our armpits smell a bit rank? Put on some deodorant, of course. And it seems Beijing has come up with the same solution for their foul-smelling pits of garbage.

According to Treehugger.com, the city is installing 100 giant deodorant guns at its Asuwei dump site, following smell complaints from local residents.

The high-pressure fragrance cannons reportedly spray gallons of an odor-fighting agent per minute, with a range of up to 20 feet. City officials will also cover the trash with plastic to help minimize the stench.

Although their smell-control efforts might work in the short-term, it doesn’t solve Beijing’s bigger issue: it can’t keep up with all the trash it produces. Local officials say the city of 17 million generates more than 18,000 tons of trash daily, 700 tons more than its current dumps are equipped to handle.

“All landfill and treatment sites in Beijing will be full in four years. That’s how long it takes to build a treatment plant. So we need to act right now to resolve the issue,” said Wang Weiping, a waste expert in the city government. “It’s necessary to restructure the current disposal system. We cannot rely on landfill anymore. It’s a waste of space.”

One reason for the trash problem is it seems Chinese citizens are not very good recyclers. Less than 4 percent of its trash is recycled, versus 35 percent in the UK and US. (Go us!)

So it seems those deodorant guns are simply a stop-gap measure. But perhaps all that stinky trash will motivate China to recycle a lot more. In other words, perhaps Red China will become Green China before we know it.

Editor’s note: Article by Kathy Ehrich Dowd and image by Th145 via Wikimedia Commons. Originally published by our friends at Tonic.com. Tonic is a digital media company and news source dedicated to promoting the good that happens each day around the world. Tonic tells the stories of people and organizations who are working to make a difference, by inspiring good in themselves and others. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Tonic on Twitter, too!

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