Masks, air purifiers in short supply in smoggy China
Staff Reporter 2013-12-10 10:23
Four people wear masks while visiting the West Lake in Hangzhou, Dec. 7. (Photo/Xinhua)
Face masks and air purifiers have been in short supply in parts of China that have been plagued with heavy mist and fog over the past week, with suppliers complaining about substandard goods circulating in the market amid heightened demand.
Zhao Danqing, chairman of the Shanghai-based Sinotextiles Corp, said the company's LVDUN face masks, which are said to filter out PM 2.5 particles — particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which can pose health risks — have created more than 1 million yuan (US$164,600) in sales on the online marketplace Tmall on Dec. 5 and 2.1 million yuan (US$345,600) in sales on Dec. 6.
"Demand for face masks has exceeded our expectations, and everyone on the assembly line has been working until midnight, with some sleeping only three to four hours per day, to produce face masks, according to a senior member of the management at the Sinotextiles Corp, who identified himself only by his family name Jiang.
A major supermarket in Nanjing in eastern China's Jiangsu province, which sells the LVDUN masks, placed orders worth over 500,000 yuan (US$82,300) on the first day that smog began to affect the city. The supermarket requested another batch of the masks, totaling over 1 million yuan (US$164,600), the next day. Jiang said the supermarket was not the only one to order masks worth over 1 million yuan, but he noted that his company had only been able to fill a quarter of the demand.
Air purifiers are also out of stock since many parts of northern, central and eastern China have reported heavy mist and smog hovering overhead.
Li Kaijiu, general manager of the Chinese branch of Swedish air purifier maker Blueair, said more than 100 customers had approached the company's distributor in Shanghai during the past week and bought all of the machines in the warehouse there.
US firm Honeywell International said sales of air purifiers in China have been increasing at an annual speed of 50%, and the recent threat of mist and smog has further boosted sales.
Sales of air purifiers on online platforms Tmall and Taobao skyrocketed by 184% on Dec. 7 compared to the same day last year, while sales of face masks on the two sites during the past week soared by 903% compared to the previous year.
Most of the purchases of these products came from customers located in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo and Suzhou.
Meanwhile, the increasing demand for face masks and air purifiers has fueled concerns of substandard products circulating on the market. "Almost all the masks on the market claim they are capable of filtering out PM 2.5 particles; some of them work and others don't," according to Zhao.
The market is also filled with air purifiers claiming to use technology as varied as negative ion technology, photocatalysis, and high-efficiency particulate absorption (HEPA).
"In mature markets such as the United States, products using negative ion technology are rare," Li said, adding that the use of filter nets and active carbon is more common. Li also called into question products that claim they can clean 99.9% of the air indoors, saying that data gained through laboratory tests do not reflect this.
"Unlike laboratories, which are a closed space, air is constantly entering and leaving most other places. If the amount of air entering a place surpasses the amount an air purifier is capable of handling, it cannot achieve a 99.9% success rate," Li said.
He also cast doubts on machines that claim to be able to kill bacteria. Some manufacturers who say their machines can kill bacteria are doing so by releasing ozone, which Li said is toxic. The use of ozone to remove bacteria is disputable in the air purifier business, he added.
