If you’ve ever found yourself with a case of the black lung after being caught in the path of an old tugboat’s fumes in our beautifully smoggy harbour, you can count on breathing a little bit easier from now on.
The Marine Department quietly issued a notice on July 22 stating that any non-local vessel in Hong Kong waters will now be fined for emitting dark smoke that is as dark or darker than “Shade 2 on the Ringelmann chart” for three or more minutes at a time (see above). The first offense will cost them up to $25,000 while those dumb enough to get caught a second time will be fined up to $50,000. Local vessels will be fined slightly less.
In case you were not familiar with smoke density measurements, the Ringelmann chart is an international scale that measures how dark smoke is.
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