China’s foulest
fortnight for air pollution in memory has re-kindled a tongue-in-cheek campaign
by a multi-millionaire who is selling cans of fresh air.
Chen Guangbiao, who made his fortune in the recycling business and is a high-profile philanthropist, on Wednesday handed out soda pop-sized cans of air, purportedly from far-flung, pristine regions of China such as Xinjiang in the northwest to Taiwan, the southeast coast.
“I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big
companies: don’t just chase GDP growth, don’t chase the biggest profits at the
expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our
ecological environment”, Chen said.
China’s air quality is
closely watched as it fluctuates dramatically from day to day but in recent
weeks has registered far into the unhealthy zone.
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Air pollution is
measured in terms of PM2,5, or particulate matter 2,5 micrometres in diameter,
which are absorbed by the lungs and can cause heart and lung disease. The World
Health Organisation recommends a daily PM2,5 level of 20 and says that levels
greater than 300 are serious health hazards.
Beijing’s air quality
frequently surges past a level of 500, and on Jan. 12 soared to 755, the
highest in memory.
“I go outside, walk for about 20 minutes, and my throat hurts
and I feel dizzy”, Chen told Reuters in
an interview on a busy Beijing sidewalk.
He handed out green and orange cans of “Fresh Air”, with a caricature of himself on them saying,“Chen Guangbiao is a good man”.
“Be a good person, have a good heart, do good things,” reads a message along the bottom of each can.
The 44-year-old
entrepreneur, whose wealth is estimated at $740 million according to last
year’s Hurun Rich List of China’s super-wealthy, is an ebullient and tireless
self-promoter.
He is something of a
celebrity in China, with more than 4 million followers on Sina Weibo, China’s
most popular Twitter-like microblogging platform.
He concedes that his
canned-air effort is tongue in cheek, but says it’s a way to awaken people to
the importance of environmental protection. His campaign is attracting
bemusement but also plaudits from the media and from people desperate to escape
the smog.
“Beijing’s air really needs to improve, so we need a good man like him to appear,” said a 21-year-old resident surnamed Hu. “It reminds people to use less fuel and do what they can for Beijing’s air”.
The cans of air were free on
Wednesday, but usually sell for 5 yuan (80 cents) with proceeds going to poor regions of
China, and places of historic revolutionary importance.
Sales, which had been moderate,
took off after the recent streak of bad air days, with 8 million cans sold in
the last 10 days, Chen said.
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