What Pollution in China was like in our daily life in 2016

What about it

First of all, pollution in China isn’t just a topic of discussion—it’s a real and visible issue. What happened in Europe a century ago is now unfolding in China. In Zhengzhou, a typical day often had a blurry, hazy effect due to high pollution levels. While summers were relatively better, winters were much harsher, with significantly higher pollution levels.

Why is that? The reason is quite simple: in winter, heating demand increases, leading to higher power plant production, which in turn results in more pollution. On top of that, cold weather and unfavorable atmospheric conditions trap pollutants, making the situation even worse.

In Zhengzhou, it was normal for the Air Quality Index (AQI) to range between 150 and 300, and during winter, it could easily exceed 500.

What’s even more striking? I don’t think I ever saw the index drop below 100.

Pollution in China from our apartment

Regular pollution level

From our apartment, we could right away know how our day would be. The pictures bellow show how most of them were. Smogy weather with an average visibility.

High pollution level

The worst days where more like the pictures below. It was like having a wall in front of our windows. Those were not the most motivating days at all! But it stand for a great post!

Dirty Dirty

Certainly pollution wasn’t only part of what we would see but also what we would feel. We had for habit to clean the apartment every Sunday morning. So, once a week for the big cleaning.

While cleaning the terraces, we could easily see a layer of dirt and sand! We could have made a small dirt castle with the quantity there was! And that was just in one week.

While inside was not as much dirt but mostly dust, it is still true that we never saw that many. And on Sunday evening, our feet would already be dark walking bare foot in the apartment.

Hence, a normal thing before doing yoga and getting on the mat was to rub the dust from our feet! I wish I found a picture of that and the small pile of dust on the side of the yoga mat!

But…

Finally there were also a few good days!

Pollution in China Outside

Well, the best way to realize the pollution is of course on the street. Going to work, having dinner at the street food corner, meeting friends or walking in the parks of the city. Pollution wasn’t something we could run away from and to be honest it wasn’t really bothering in our daily life. It would just feel sometimes too much, but we got past it as it is not something you can change. Only leaving would have been a solution. We must also admit that it was the 3^rd year of our stay there that pollution became a burden.

The APP, we were using to know the level of pollution is called AIR MATTERS. If you are interested, it also works back home.

On the street

During the day, at night, from the ground or higher ground, you couldn’t miss it. And it became “crazy” when the top of skyscraper with 32 floors and more would just disappear. Or when the illuminated letter of an advertisement located on the top of a skyscraper would just be noticeable and blurry.

Yet, it was bearable. And it is true that you get used to it and start only to notice it when the level is really high! or went there is on the contrary a really low level.

At work

And you can’t run from it. I worked 10km from the city center, at the edge of the city but it didn’t change anything!

But not always

Thankfully, we also got some beautiful days where we were enjoying walking the parks, sitting on a terrace for drinks, meeting up with our friends…

Those days could come naturally, as the city was on a flat region and if there were enough strong winds it could blow away the pollution. Or, if there would be government meetings, the local authorities would close some factories to decrease the pollution level.

But that was part of the life there, and we lived with it.

Driving it: Pollution in China

That’s our final post on the pollution in China and especially what we lived in Zhengzhou. Part of your daily life if going to work and that’s what it looked like!

With the pollution level raising, the particles and smog would make your daily drive look like that! Surely, we had to be really careful as visibility dropped down drastically. It became impossible to predict or even see what was on the road!

Hell yeah

Well, that’s supposed to be a 22 floors building! standing out as it was the tallest building where i worked but it almost disappeared. This building should be seen all along the videos but with a visibility of let’s say 20m, that was impossible!

Where to stay in Zhengzhou

After we left China, I went back there for a few business trip, here is where I liked to stay:

• (€) Sofitel Zhengzhou International
• (€€) JW Marriott Hotel Zhengzhou