A new study found that high pollution rates in the U.S could be traced back to emissions from Chinese factories producing products exported to the U.S.
Researchers from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign led by atmospheric science Prof. Don Wuebbles studied exported goods from China. They discovered that 27 percent of nitrogen oxides, 22 percent of carbon monoxide, 36 percent of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide, and 17 percent of black carbon from emissions from Chinese factories are related to the production of goods for export.
Similarly, 21 percent of emissions from China for each of the enumerated pollutants are from the production of goods that are constantly transported to the U.S.
Although rain may decrease these pollutants, a huge amount of them hangs around the atmosphere and travels to other places.
"Pollution from China is having an effect in the U.S., and we need to recognize how that is affecting both our background ozone levels and also particulates that are reaching the West Coast," Prof. Wuebbles said to CNN.
Although outsourcing the manufacture for certain products to China may have decreased pollution in the Eastern states, Western states are seeing a rapid increase of pollutants related to China-made products. The researchers found out that for the western part of the United States, pollutants related to Chinese products increased from 12 percent to 24 percent.
Consumer goods from China that are highly demanded by the markets in the U.S include cellphones and televisions. Although Chinese emissions are not the sole cause of pollution in the U.S, "westerlies" winds can bring these pollutants across the Pacific Ocean to other places in just a matter of days.
To decrease the pollutants from China coming to the U.S, Wuebbles made some recommendation on fine-tuning the efficiency of the manufacturing process as well as re-evaluating the energy production for Chinese processing plants.
The study was published in the online journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
