I originally thought Guilin was fairly clean, but I rarely saw the sun. If I journeyed into the north end of the city it was always low lying smoke. Out skirts or out of the city sun always shawn. I think something triggered something in me there, in China my nose really ran all the time, at home it drips, but never cleared up even with prescription nose sprays.

Most train and bus trips that I took were at night, so I never saw anything. I did some exploring around Yangshou area on motorcycle, beautifully green, but so much litter in the middle of no where. The street sweepers don't do a good enough job there. I stopped in a small village once for beers, went down to check out a woman bathing in the river. When I got to the shore I could see that there was a large bay,,,, and it was completely covered with plastic bags, plastic 6 pack holders and other garbage. I've never seen anything like that before. But the woman looked good, there's just something special about wet women.

Big cities relatively free of pollution... Wait, what ?! Let's just consider air pollution. Every cities I have been is bathing in a grey/brown haze, which you can see if you climb a hill in the outskirt of the city. It's typical of coal pollution, and AQI pm2.5 data are consistent with that. Some cities are worse than the other : if you have steel mills around, it's going to be worse, if it's really cold in winter, etc.

In poor provinces/districts not hit yet by industrial development (say, small Ganxu towns, mountain villages in Sichuan/Ganxu) have very clear skies, pristine nature, etc. But then, *some* small towns have one big factory (say, paper production, chemistry, etc.) which have a very easy time to not care about pollution. The local officials are poorly paid and poorly trained, so they are very easy to buy. The local population is likewise poorly educated, and if they make any noise, nobody will care. If you want pics and stories, you can dig that on the website ChinaFile http://www.chinafile.com/

In Sichuan, large parts of the province are considered 'protected landscape'; you can't even fell trees that you own without permission and replanting efforts. The countryside here looks very pristine, almost wildly forested, and the farms don't look polluted either. Stories of smart, wealthy farmers are abound, and they build many brand spanking new houses with no value other than to live in. This might not be representative of the country, though.
Pollution is a very real problem in China, but most people here can't be objective about it.

1) Government & media will downplay it as much as credibly possible, to promote industry and profitability. They also supply the information by controlling the Chinese intranet and language barriers. Chinese are as informed on pollution issues as they are on modern hygiene; only superficially.

2) Chinese people are aware of this to an extent, and this fuels their own nihilistic outlook on the matter. People tend to overreact or be ignorant of the dangers, and Chinese people even more so because of the lack of education.

3) With all the vested interests and panic everywhere, it's hard to evaluate pollution reduction efforts as well. Are they just minimal and for show, or do they actually help? I was wowed years back by China becoming #1 in green energy, but I've learned that that's how they tend to approach things here; by getting high in top-10 rankings, and not really caring about the real issues, as long as lost face is regained the problem is considered solved...

"big cities are surprisingly relatively free from pollution"

Relatively free from pollution? Relative to what... an exhaust pipe?

During my studies we did talk a lot about pollution. I remeber one of our professors showing us a chart of the avg. air quality during 2006 or 2007, and Shanghai, the largest citiy in China, had the 5. best air quality (Hainan was 1st, Beijing was somewhere in the lower-middle), that sort of puts it into perspective, that a huge, congested city like that has one of the best air qualities in China.

Chinese country side outside the senic spots is super depressing, actually many senic spots are overflowing with garbage anyway.

I'd say water pollution is the biggest threat to China. China already lacks fresh water. I read in one paper that many rivers and lakes are so polluted and poisoned that they simply cannot be cleaned up with the technology available today. Most, not all, of China is a complete environmental disaster zone and I simply don't see things getting better anytime soon.

Harbin had a few days with PM2.5 of 500 this year so far...

That's insane, and I live here, so I know. You can't see.

The pollution is that bad ... Look at Paris, they said now till 2020 they will cut out all diesel vehicles from city. Paris, with policies at levels, where AQI of PM2,5 reach 70 points for 2 and more consecutive days causing alarms and cutting the cars entry for half and so on. .... When did you have so good air in your chinese city last time ? ? ? ? ? ?

and I wish I take photo of the small river running trough the hometown of my wife and her parents. villaghe of 200-300 people, i guess, all other s are in city for job. and that small river very colorful of plastic bag decoration. many days, I could not see more than 1km or so, becaus edirty air from "far away" city of Hefei, Luan, and factories in between the hills

Rant alert

The problem with pollution..... is that it is always another persons problem to solve.

It's never ours.

But it is.

We all need to self police ourselves on this.  Are you sat in a traffic jam in your SUV choking on pollution?  Hey. It's your pollution. Switch your engine off.

Don't want to get the bus because you are special?  Hey, heads up. You being special adds to the problem.

I reckon we all need to be aware of our carbon footprint.

Look at oil prices at the moment. The bottom has dropped out of the market because of shale gas fracking in the States.  And the UK want to follow the same model.  Result... cheap energy for the electorate. OPEC flood the market with cheap oil to compete.... and low energy costs do nothing to drive innovation and research into alternative energy sources. Only expensive energy can drive the efficiency of it's use.

When the shale gas runs out and the oil is no more, we will start to burn what's left of the forests. Then we will plant grain to distil into spirit. Given time, our drive for cheap energy will render the earth a desert.

My solution?  Hey.. take responsibility. Take the bus to work. Or even better, cycle there. Too far away?  Easy move closer to your workplace.  Buy from local farmers rather than global stores with massive food miles. Switch your bathroom light off if your not in the bathroom.

I first visited Guangzhou back in 2005. In three months I never saw the sky. This year, there has been more blue sky than ever before. Why. Because the Government are doing something. Are they doing the right thing?  Hey... don't know. But lets face it, only a society such as this could ban 2 stroke motorbikes, do alternate number plate days. Could you imagine a western country doing that?

Anyway..... yeah China is the biggest polluter. Almost twice the C02 emissions of the States.  But the States are almost 2.5 times worse per capita.

My solution to the pollution issue is simple. Ban ownership of private cars.  Or at least limit engine capacity and fuel consumption

Also, set up an international depository for nuclear waste, and build more nuclear power stations in geologicly stable areas. We need to put this whole concept of A bombs behind us to provide a global solution on energy production.

And also, invest in the development of the technology to manufacture micro power stations that deliver more energy than their own carbon footprint over a set number of years . You only need a fraction of an amp to charge a phone.

Ha... Rant over.

Here is a thought.  My dad worked on the UK railways for a few decades.  He would always have customers complain about the shitty condition of the toilets in the station. His response... " If you want clean toilets then don't mess them up. I clean them twice per shift. Why am I accountable if the customer before you does not flush ?"

In Tianjin its like hell, last week level of pm 2.5 Was 494.hard to breath.