China pollution

Subscribe to China pollution

By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate

Earlier this month, during a round of surprise inspections, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection Zhao Yangmin publicly shamed the city officials of Langfang, a city in Hebei province, for failing to take action after a severe pollution warning was issued on April 2, 2017.  Deputy Minister Zhao also ordered a production halt at companies in Langfang which had failed to meet emissions control requirements or had submitted falsified emissions data, blaming “some local governments that do not take emergency response seriously.”

The inspection was part of a 28-city inspection campaign by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the largest the Ministry has ever undertaken. The inspections involve 5,600 inspectors and will run through March of 2018, focusing on the provinces surrounding Beijing and Tianjin, where some of China’s worst air pollution is found.  Officials determined to be lax in their enforcement efforts could receive lower ratings in the personnel evaluation system used by the government; for serious offense, officials could be demoted, fired, or in some cases even subject to criminal charges.

By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate

On 28 May, the State Council, China’s highest administrative body, released the Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution (currently available only in Chinese) to address one of the nation’s most difficult and pressing environmental issues.  This ambitious plan, developed in the wake of increasing consciousness of soil pollution issues, most visibly the students affected by contamination at a school in Jiangsu province this April, will require that 90 percent of contaminated farmland be made safe by 2020, and 95% by 2030.  According to some estimates, the cost of these efforts could reach $1 trillion.  In addition, the Action Plan calls for a detailed national survey of soil conditions to be completed by 2018, including identifying “hotspots” of severe pollution (a topic which was not included in previous reports), categorizing farmland by level of contamination.  The survey will be repeated every 10 years thereafter.  The Action Plan does not, however, provide details on the evaluation and selection of cleanup measures, or define standards for soil remediation or what constitutes a “hotspot.”  Finally, Article 7 of the Action Plan endorses the “polluter pays” (as well as the polluter’s successor) principle seen in the revised Environmental Protection Law and various notices and regulations issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection over the last few years.

By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate

On Sunday, China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s state-run broadcast network, aired a report claiming that nearly 500 students apparently developed illnesses (including leukemia) at a school built on contaminated land. Of the 2,451 students that attend Changzhou Foreign Languages School in Jiangsu Province, 493 (one in five) were diagnosed with diseases including dermatitis, bronchitis, white blood cell deficiencies, and in a few cases, lymphoma or leukemia. The school, which opened last year, is located one block from a plot that was home to three chemical plants which were relocated in 2010. An investigative report from the financial journal Caixin quoted a former employee of one of the companies stating that it had buried toxic waste at the site, and regularly dumped waste into a river that flows into the Yangtze. Samples taken in 2012 show concentrations of chlorobenzene (a component of herbicides) 94,799 times greater than national groundwater standards, in addition to contamination with other toxic chemicals and heavy metals.

The report has received considerable attention on the internet, with a “contaminated school” discussion thread on social media chat site Weibo attracting 30 million views and 76,000 comments within a day after the report aired on CCTV. Reports state that parents across the country are concerned that such incidents could happen anywhere in China. In response to the report, the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated that it “attached great importance to the matter” and the Changzhou city government stated that it has “zero tolerance” for pollution, and will be taking prompt action.

Though overshadowed for many years by air and water issues, soil pollution has attracted increasing focus in China, particularly following a separate Caixin investigation which revealed that rice grown in Hunan, China’s top rice-producing province, was contaminated with cadmium. In 2014, a government survey conducted between 2006 and 2011 was released showing that one fifth of China’s agricultural land is contaminated. Lan Hong, a professor at Renmin University’s School of Environment and Natural Resources observed that “China has entered its Love Canal era.”