Does pollution in China suggest no bicycling?
I've read that pollution in Beijing often makes exercise unwise. Do the masks actually make any difference?
I'm more interested in bicycling in other places, especially Foshan & Guangzhou.
Best Answer
Like @Tom said in the comment :
Masks block only a portion of the pollution
The problem with the Chinese haze is due to 2 types of particles : pm10 and pm2.5 and those last ones (pm2.5) are really small and you can't protect yourself even when wearing a mask. Event if the mask specially mentioned "works against pm2.5" because they are lying.
I used to lived there during one year and most of the embassy recommendations during high pollution days were : stay home, close windows, and no physical activity at all.
You can check real time pollution level of each particles with a lot of mobile apps like this one China Air Quality.
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Does biking reduce air pollution?
No Gas, No Pollution By not using any gas, bikes don't release harmful emissions that pollute the atmosphere, nor any carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change. Just moderate increases in bicycle use each year could save an estimated 6 to 14 million tons of CO2.Does riding a bicycle increase air pollution?
Bike riding, on the other hand, uses minimal fossil fuels. This means riding your bike offers a pollution-free mode of transport. If you replace a car with a bike each time you go to work, you will save approximately 3000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions each year.Can you cycle through China?
Traveling with the freedom of your own means of transport is not easy in China, but with a bicycle you can go almost everywhere you want with no additional paperwork. Unfortunately, China in the West is seen only as a polluted country full of skyscrapers and gray building blocks, but nothing is further from reality.Is cycling actually good for the environment?
As a form of transport, cycling is not bad for the environment. Certainly not when compared to motorised transport! Per kilometre, cycling has a carbon footprint of around 20g of CO2. This is less than a tenth of the emissions produced by a car over the same distance.China's Bike-Sharing Disaster
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Answer 2
Did a quick web search. The first hit, not only shows hourly reports for Guangzhou, but it also has a chart of recommendations for different levels, and says that there are IOS and Android apps to get the U.S. Embassy's version. Whether China's "great firewall" prevents it from working, I cannot say. They imply it can be found in Apple's U.S. store, but not so.
Today's levels in GuangZhou are "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups."
There is a link to stateair.net which has more info and allows one to download the historical values for the entire year.
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