The kitchen smoke control of restaurants is listed as one of the eight key measures to control air pollution in the city. The seven other measures include transformation of boilers, car tail gas control and industrial pollution control.

The kitchen smoke is one of the important sources of VOC and PM10 in the air. It is one of the major air pollutants in addition to industrial waste gas and car exhausts. It is well related to the high incidence of lung cancer among Chinese housewives.

Professor Wang Yu of environment engineering of Tsinghua University said that it is estimated that about 4 to 8 billion Nm3/d emitted from the city?s 60,000 restaurants, 5,000 canteens and 4 million households, equivalent to the amount discharged from 2,000 35-ton boilers, 100 200,000kw coal-fuelled electrical power generators and 2.6 million 1.8 liter cars.

The State Environmental Protection Administration issued standards last July to control restaurant smoke emission. Beijing officially launched its efforts of the kind on June 28 when a kitchen smoke control conference was held.

Beijing will issue its own rules on restaurant smoke control. Legal enforcement will be strengthened to see if there is any violation. The restaurant owners may choose whatever smoke purifiers they like and the environmental administration is only held responsible for checks. Li Yaohui, vice general manager of the Tsinghua Ziguang Dongxing environmental Science and Technology Co., was very excited by the market prospects. He said that he will supply good quality products.

According to Shi Hanmin, deputy director of the Beijing environmental protection administration, the rise of the concentration of the fine particulate matter in the evening, the time for the cooking of the supper, is related to the rise of kitchen smoke in the air. It is a vital matter for a green Olympics in 2008, he said.

Professor Wang Yu said that kitchen smoke control calls for a long period of efforts and a well mature corresponding industry. Though there are a great variety of products at the market that can effectively cleanse oil-laden particulate matter in the air, those that can be mass-produced are few and their performance varies. He said that Beijing may learn from the experiences of Chengdu and Wuhan that have attempted to control kitchen smoke earlier.

He said that post-sale service is very important for the kitchen smoke purifier manufacturers. Better service will provide greater market opportunities, he said.

(www.cenews.com.cn July 22, 2002)