Stock image. Photograph by Brian Jeffery Beggerly
A Chinese man is suing the environmental protection bureau of Shijiazhuang over the smog that hangs over the city for the money he had to spend on air filters and a treadmill to exercise indoors.
Li Guixin is seeking 10,000 yuan (£978) in damages from officials, with the lawsuit reflecting a wider concern amongst the Chinese population about the effects of smog on human health according to Bloomberg News.
The dangerously high pollution levels affecting many Chinese cities is the result of rapid Chinese industrialisation in recent decades, where environmental protections have been ignored in favour of development at any cost.
As China has emerged on the world stage, it is now looking towards reducing its environmental impact, with the smog likely to be a major issue of discussion during the upcoming National People’s Congress on 5th March.
At the time of writing, “unhealthy” air pollution was affecting three of China’s biggest cities, and the conditions in Beijing described as “hazardous” to human health with an Air Quality Index of 501.
