Industrial Air Monitoring: Chimney After Dark, Rethinking

I undertook an internship with the Environment Protection & Climate Change Department (EP&CCD) in Faisalabad, Punjab, from August to October 2026 and visited various industrial units and brick kilns in Faisalabad. I saw very little that was not as good as I'd hoped. What interests me more is what I couldn't see, and what people told me goes on after dark.

What the air data reveals this year!

I analysed the data from IQAir for the past year of Faisalabad air quality (November 2025 to October 2026). The lowest month was December 2025, with an AQI of 314 (hazardous) and PM2.5 of average 232 µg/m³. The lowest observation in June 2026, was 31.3 µg/m³, about 2 times the WHO 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³. None of the months were rated in the good or moderate categories. The PM10 also trended in the same direction, but with a smaller variation, averaging around 301 µg/m³ in November-February, compared to 159 µg/m³ in April-September. These are IQAir monthly averages and October is a partial month.

The seasonal behaviour is relevant for policy

The concentration of PM2.5 averaged approximately 195 µg/m³ from November to February, which is approximately 4.5 times higher than the concentration of PM2.5 averaged during the month period from April to September (about 44 µg/m³); Fine particles accounted for about two thirds of PM10 during this month period. During the warmer months when the fall was between approximately 16% and 36%, coarse particles were more important. This is aligned with multiple sources and not just industry, as it is not possible to assess each source's contribution from the data. The next rise in the winter may have already begun, this month, PM2.5 reached a value of 59.9 µg/m³ (partial month) up from 31.3 µg/m³ in June. These fluctuations are masked by the annual average and any monitoring programme must be able to do more than just monitor during the worst months of the year.

Industry current practice

On my visits, the majority of industrial units had installed the pollution control equipment, mostly cyclone separators and wet scrubbers. The brick kilns that I have visited are zigzag kilns, which are better than the fixed-chimney kilns. This is real progress and it should be recognised.

The Government has also existing monitoring infrastructure. There are CCTV cameras to monitor chimneys and Safe City cameras for a broader area coverage. There is an institutional system in place for oversight.

Gap: what happens when no one is looking.

That's where things get tricky. In a few places, the people told me that some industries are burning low-quality fuel during night hours. There were also some indications that I saw which confirmed these reports. I could not find fuel storage nor evidence sufficient to support enforcement action and I am very clear about that. These are community reports/field observations, not proven violations.

Nevertheless, it is something to consider, as it suggests a weakness in the structure. Installed is not the same as in use! An installed but not working scrubber or a boiler using substandard fuel after the daylight inspections appears compliant on paper. The cameras can't capture what happens at night.

Recommendations

From my experience, I would recommend three steps in technology.

Check operation of control equipment: The sensors can be placed on cyclones and wet scrubbers, such as differential pressure or water-flow monitoring, to establish the presence of equipment when the boiler is on. This converts “installed” to “functioning.”

Improve night-time camera: A chimney camera with night vision capabilities would enable a smoke inspector to view the colour of the smoke, 24 hours a day, through an aimed camera at the chimney outlet. A simple visible sign of poor combustion or sub-standard fuel is smoke colour.

Link the layers: The most effective use of chimney cameras, equipment sensors and air quality data is when they help each other. A sudden smoke event at night, coupled with a local PM spike, is a much stronger indication for a targeted inspection than any single data stream. Cameras have their limitations as fine particle emissions can be invisible and smoke colours are difficult to assess at night. On larger boilers, continual opacity monitors or continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) would provide additional data, not collected by cameras and would trigger an alert in the current Eco-Watch application and the EPA control room that would result in an inspection.

Closing thought

Faisalabad has no dearth of monitoring systems. It requires monitoring that happens at times and locations where compliance is difficult to enforce. The technology is available to fill that gap, and much of the camera network is already in place.