In 2009, the Ministry of House and Urban-Rural Development conducted a survey of 4000 city water supply plants to gauge if they were meeting national standards for water quality and safety. The results were never released to the public. The number of failed plants was thought to be about 25%. Recently, sources close to the governmental department responsible for the survey are saying that the actual number is closer to 50% more ›

The image is a satellite map from Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review that pinpoints a series of garbage dumps that encircle the city of Beijing, in what's been affectionately dubbed the '7th Ring' by photographer Wang Jiuliang. more ›

Here's what's happening around Shanghai: Jade Buddha Temple gets a facelift, bridges stolen in the dead of night, and a new campaign promising to return child beggars to their families. more ›

Ever felt like the media is trying to convince you that pretty much everything is bad for your health? Well you're about to get that feeling once more, as a study has shown that the total air pollution caused by electronic cars in China may be worse than conventional vehicles. more ›

In an interview with the Chinese Economic Weekly, Kan Haidong, a professor of Fudan University and the only Chinese academic to have contributed to the World Health Organisation's Global Burden of Disease research also said that the scientific jury is still out on the hourly readings published by the US Embassy in Beijing. more ›

Like ordering McDonald's at 3am, there's little doubt that breathing Shanghai's smog (or Shmog™, if you will) isn't healthy for us. But with so many myths, unhelpful statistics and outright lies floating around, it's difficult to determine the genuine health sacrifices we are making by living in a city which often resembles Mordor. To find clarity within the info-fog, we've gone and done the research for you, and the following is what you need to know. more ›

Yesterday, the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center advised all the elderly, young, and infirm to remain indoors due to a wave of fog-fostered "light" air pollution that is sweeping the city. The "fog," ( also known by its real name, smog), blew in from central and eastern China and delayed and cancelled flights from Shanghai to destinations in the north. more ›

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Shanghai will finally install PM2.5 air-quality monitoring equipment after more than two months since it pledged to do so. more ›

A 46-page report from the IPE shows the results of five months of research and field investigations on pollution emission from Apple's factories, revealing that the company has been seriously encroaching on local communities and their surrounding environments. more ›

For those of you who still think you're safe outside Beijing, researchers reported yesterday that downtown Shanghai's fog vapor harbors cancer-causing chemicals. Researchers at Fudan University found our fog to contain carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) at levels ranging 0.03 micrograms to 6.67 micrograms per liter. more ›

Shanghai has pledged to join its fellow Chinese cities in raising city-wide air-quality measuring standards to the level of countries like the U.S. and Japan. Looks like all those damning pollution pieces, including a recent Nasa satellite image of China's smog, finally struck a nerve! more ›

For those of you who haven't been taking our pollution posts seriously, here's yet another piece of evidence, this one from NASA, that Eastern China has a dire smog problem. Last week, Beijing's pollution levels reached "hazardous" levels, and the pollution swathe extends all the way down to Shanghai. Might be time to start using those air-quality tracking apps we showed you last week. more ›

Tired of unsuspectingly walking out the door on those days where China's atmosphere makes Jupiter's gaseous cloud layer look like a biosphere in Costa Rica? Now with new real-time air quality tracking twitters, sites, and apps (all city-specific), you can monitor the skies without holding your licked finger to the wind, and know exactly which days it might be better to stay in instead of going on that 10 km bike ride. more ›

Two Hong Kong TV officials have taken responsibility and resigned for broadcasting a false report of Jiang Zemin's death in July. Since 9/11, there have been more than more than 35,000 terrorism convictions in the world, and half of those took place in China and Turkey. Most of the arrests in China were, unsurprisingly, made in Xinjiang. In his new memoirs, Dick Cheney explains how he wishes he could have gotten just a little more intimate with Hu Jintao, instead of getting cockblocked during his first meeting, and spied on in the next! His inability to whisper sweet nothings led eventually to "the end of all conversations between the two politicians." more ›

No surprise here, except maybe the insane speed and degree with which smog swept back into the city following the closing of the Universiade in Shenzhen on Tuesday night. For ten days, the city experienced bright, clear blue skies with visibility up to 25 kilometers. By Thursday morning, that had plunged to 4-5 kilometers. So basically they went from Shire to Mordor in less than 48 hours. more ›

This just in, fellow Shanghai residents -- you are miserable! Sure, we may have the highest living standard on the mainland and one of the most vibrant skylines in the world, but who really cares about modern amenities anyway. According to the National China Institute of City Competitiveness, Shanghai ranked dead last among all major metropolitan centers, and was further embarrassed by 90+ smaller cities around China in a report released today. more ›

After 10 months of exposure behavioural tests were carried out on the rodents including a learning and memory test where after five days of training they were placed on a brightly lit area and given two minutes to find the dark escape hole where they would be more comfortable. more ›

Warning! Warning! Algae bloom heading towards us that'll make the Huangpu even grosser than normal! "A large expanse of green algae is floating towards China's east coast, potentially threatening marine life and the region's tourism industry, an official and state media said Wednesday. The algae covers 130 square kilometres (50 square miles) off the eastern provinces of Shandong and Jiangsu... An official in the forecasting department of the agency told AFP the size of the algae was "likely to turn out to be larger than that" reported by the newspaper, but "should be similar to regular years". Algae blooms are typically caused by pollution in China and suck up huge amounts of oxygen needed by marine wildlife to survive, while leaving a foul stench when they wash up on beaches." [AFP more ›

Thanks, you jerks! Anybody who stayed in Shanghai over May holiday probably noticed the disgusting amount of crap in the air. I know my sinuses definitely did. Turns out it's all the North's fault: sandstorms blown in from the region not only gave half of us the worst seasonal allergies ever, it also set air pollution records! more ›

“Sandstorms can actually be called ‘coal dust storms’,” said Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner Dr. Sun Qingwei. “Coal ash is a very tiny and light particle, easily picked up by wind. Winds traveling at 8 meters per second can already disperse coal ash up to 150,000 square kilometers from their origins in open-air dumping sites. And winds in a sandstorm are even stronger, with speeds of at least 25 meters per second - thus they can spread coal ash much farther. This means that even people who live far from thermal power plants in eastern and southern China must face the threat of coal pollution at their doorstep.”

"In China’s thousands of years of civilization, the conflict between humankind and nature has never been as serious as it is today... The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the worsening ecological environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to the nation’s economic and social development more ›

Alas, even the great staple of the Chinese diet - white rice - isn't completely safe in China. While cadmium isn't known to cause cancer, it is extremely toxic in even small amounts and will bioaccumulate in bodies and the environment. And it's in 10% of the rice on sale at the Chinese market right now! more ›

A recent study of Mexico City's air pollution found that, because of all the gross stuff in the air, 55 middle class children there were developing brain lesions like those found in patients with dementia. Considering the well documented decline in air quality since Expo ended, what does this study mean for us here in Shanghai? more ›

The Suzhou Creek restoration project has reached its third and final phase, and it looks like they saved the best for last. Those of you lucky enough to live on the banks of our recently renovated waterway will be privy to an exciting six-month dredging project, whereby 12 boats will dig up around 1.3 million cubic meters of industrial sludge, sedimentary sewage goo, and possibly a few bombs left over from the Second Sino-Japanese War. more ›

Suspect your local factory of producing swill oil - that nasty, cancer-causing reprocessed cooking oil that shocked Shanghainese when it was discovered here? Then report it at the special Swill Oil hotline set up by the Shanghai government: 5290-1111. Cash payouts (of an unspecified amount) will be made for tip-offs about the unlicensed processing and sale of the product, the Sanitation Bureau said. Currently, only two plants in the city are authorized to dispose of waste oil and 23 firms are legally allowed to collect it. more ›

Greenpeace released a striking photo gallery last week entitled "The dirty secret behind your jeans and bras." It chronicles the working conditions and pollution in two of Guangdong's main textile hubs, where most of the world's jeans, bras and underwear are made. Greenpeace had a look at the human and environmental impact of the industries, and the results were pretty bleak. more ›

The factory is located in Songjiang District and is both a sanitary and olfactory disaster zone. Owing to its somewhat illegal status, its workers do most of their processing by night and are incredibly wary when trucks loaded with barrels full of dirty oil get transferred in. The kicker is that police can't really shut the operation down - there's no laws against them "storing" waste oil there and there's nowhere to put it if they are to remove it. more ›