Direct Source

Direct Source of the Air Pollution in Ulaanbaatar

During the winter months, Mongolians living in the Ger district burn raw coal and other waste materials (e.g. car tires, plastic, etc.) to keep themselves warm (Denton, 2018). Raw coal is a very environmentally damaging fuel, as it is unwashed and unprocessed, meaning that when burned, it releases a lot of particulate matter as well as higher levels of gases that are harmful for us, such as Carbon Monoxide, Sulfur Dioxide, and Nitrogen Oxide (Air pollution in Mongolia, 2019). Additionally, burning waste materials such as car tires are naturally going to release toxic gases into the atmosphere.

As such a heavy layer of pollution is pressing down on Ulaanbaatar, it begs the question of why people continue burning raw coal and waste materials in the winter. One major reason for this continual usage of raw and not processed coal can be explained by the Tragedy of the Commons.

Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons is a situation that occurs when a shared natural resource is being over-consumed by individuals who have unrestricted access to it, thus resulting in the destruction of the source (Kenton, n.d.).

Applying this concept to the situation in Ulaanbaatar, the shared natural resource in question is the ambient air quality. This air quality is being polluted liberally by individuals as they have unrestricted access to it via their coal burning, thus resulting in the heavy pollution of the atmosphere.

There are no dis-incentives to halt their actions of buying raw coal which pollutes the atmosphere, because even if they switched fuel-type, there would be another person who would buy that raw-coal and pollute the atmosphere. To add to that, a new method of heating (e.g. electrical heating) would cost much more.