According to Beijing’s vice mayor Ji Lin the city has currently 9,700 construction sites, something like the equivalent of construction all over Europe. It is one of the major causes of pollution – dust particles in the air. Beijing has imposed several rules: all trucks that transport soil and dirt must be closed, bare land, soil and sand needs to be covered by tarp as well as entire buildings under construction, wrapped in canvas as big boxes. Access roads to construction sites must be kept clean. You can see workers scraping the soil and cement off those roads and often spraying water, even on the truck tires. Well, those are the rules. It does not stop construction sites producing clouds of dust as workers often dump rubble “the easy way”. The never-ending construction next to Julong Garden is a typical example. We are constantly covered under layers of dust, opening windows is not recommended and cars need to be cleaned several times per day.

I caught the workers in the act a couple of days ago, simply dumping dust and rubble from the building (see the highlighted circle). The clouds are easy to see and it is no fog…