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On May 31st 2016, China State Council issued the Action Plan for the Prevention and Treatment of Soil Pollution. The fact that this action plan came out of the State Council instead of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) is a game changer and will mean the implementation of a new foundational regulation on the prevention and treatment of soil pollution.
Why these actions plan?
After 30 years of fast economic development, China has emerged on the other side as an affluent nation and the world’s second largest economy. The grim side of this astonishing economic success story is the air, water and soil pollution which has damaged China’s ecosystem and severely impacted the health of both urban and rural populations. China’s soil has been one of the most severely impacted by China’s single minded pursuit of GDP growth. Unfortunately, it was not until the 1990s that the authorities started paying attention to the deterioration of soil quality. The government carried out research and investigations on the pollution to farm lands, most of which caused by the abuse of DDT and other pesticides. Based on the investigation, China released the first Environmental Quality Standard of Soils in 1995.
However, it was only a national standard, not a regulation or a law. Before the Action Plan, the central government hasn’t carried out any specific regulations on soil pollution. Some relevant requirements are outlined in associated regulations separately, such as Prevention and Treatment on Pollution from Solid Wastes and Agricultural Law, etc however no specific legislation protecting soil quality has been implemented. The lack of a systematic and specific regulation made it difficult for law enforcement authorities to deal with soil pollution. Now the Action Plan provides a legal basement that is more convenient for the authorities and the industry.
Characteristics of soil pollution
There are numerous pollutants existing in soils. They can be classified as inorganic pollutants and organic ones. Most of the inorganic pollutants are heavy metals, including cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, chromium, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt and so on. While the organic pollutants are more varied, numerous and complex, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, etc. and semi-volatile organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and some organic pesticides.
Compared with air and water pollution, the soil pollution has its own characteristics:
It’s more difficult to discover. The air and water pollution is usual visible or emits strong odors. While the pollution in soil often has to be determined by sample analysis or animal tests. There often is a long period before the soil pollution is detected.
It’s cumulative. Compared to air and water, soil pollutants are harder to migrate, diffuse or be diluted in soils. So the pollution easily accumulates in soils.
It’s heterogeneous. It’s also because of the slowness of the migration, diffusion and dilution of pollutants in soils. This brings a lot of difficulties for the detection and treatment of the soil pollution.
It’s almost irreversible. The heavy metals are nearly non-degradable and the degradation time for many organic pollutants is very long. So the treatment of soil pollution is always accompanied with long treatment periods and high cost. It doesn’t work just by cutting off the source of the pollutants.
The soil pollution comes from various sources. In China, there are three major soil pollution sources:
The waste gas, waste water and waste residues emitted by the industrial enterprises.
Agricultural activities that leaves pesticides, waste water and plastic films in the soils.
Household garbage. The waste electronics, batteries, light tubes and other solid wastes contain heavy metals and plastics that are hard to degrade.
“Soil 10”
The Action Plan has 10 areas of focus. This is why the Action Plan is also called “Soil 10”, similar to “Air 10” and “Water 10” which are action plans for air and water pollution released in the past. These three action plans constitute a comprehensive system for the pollution treatment of the major aspects of the environment. (There are other kinds of pollution such as noise, but they are not in priority given the current development level of China.)
The overall target of the Action Plan is to treat and convert 90% of the polluted farmland and 90% of the polluted land parcels into lands that can be safely used by 2020. The figure is required to be raised to 95% by 2030.
The 10 specific missions are:
Carry out a thorough investigation on soil quality all over the country. This is the most important goal of the Action Plan. The investigation result is the foundation of all other works. From 2005 to 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) launched the first country wide soil pollution investigation and covered an area of 6.3 million kilometer square. In 2012, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) carried out the investigation of heavy metal pollution of farmland. By the end of 2015, a total number of 31,367 monitor spots have been set up all over the country. However, the previous investigations lasted for relatively long periods and didn’t adopt unified methods, so the results lacked consistency and accuracy. Therefore, the goal of the investigation this time is to acquire accurate and authoritative results of the soil pollution situation for the purpose of further policy making. A decennial investigation system should be established to obtain the dynamic data for soil pollution.
Establish a comprehensive legal system for the prevention and treatment of soil pollution. Nonferrous metal industry and petroleum industry will be the focus of supervision.
Farmlands will be classified into 3 categories based on the pollution level. The use of these farmlands will be limited based on this data. The data will be updated at regular intervals.
Construction projects will take soil pollution into account. Less construction will be allowed on the polluted land parcels for the sake of human health.
The protection of unpolluted lands will be reinforced. The use of vacant land will be more carefully assessed and will require a detailed environmental evaluation.
Set up a stricter supervision system on the pollution sources. Again, the nonferrous industry and petroleum industry will be impacted greatly.
Detailed repair plan for the polluted lands will be formulated. The pollution source will take the major responsibility to repair. By 2017, MEP will release an evaluation method for the repair result of the polluted lands.
The environmental protection industry and technology will be encouraged. More advanced and new technique will be used on the repair of the polluted lands. Currently there are nearly 1,000 enterprises in the soil pollution treatment industry in China. However this industry is still in its infancy in China. The industry is expected to bloom after the release of the Action Plan.
6 cities are chosen to be the pilot areas for new methods of soil pollution control and treatment.
By the end of 2016, every provincial administrative sectors will sign the liability statement with the central government. The detailed responsibility and expected result will be set.
Supporting legal documents
At present, there are 48 national standards regarding soil quality and protection, varying from the soil quality evaluation standards to the soil quality monitoring standards. But some of the standards were formulated a long time ago and some of the technical contexts are out dated. For example, the academic community claims that the limit standard for cadmium is too strict while that for lead is too loose. It’s easy to see that many of the national standards need amending.
MEP has started the amendments on the soil standards from 2006, beginning with the Environmental Quality Standard of Soils (GB 15618-1995), which was the first national standard on soil quality in China. Next, there will be more amendments or new national standards in the following 4 major aspects:
New standards on farmland and construction land will be developed separately to replace the current overall quality standard.
Some new soil quality monitoring and evaluation standards will be developed with the current state-of-art techniques.
The treatment standards regarding pesticides and fertilizers will be amended.
New methods for testing and analyzing the pollutants in the soils will be developed in relevant standards.
Repair methods for polluted soils
There are three major methods to reduce the environmental risks posed by polluted soils. Due to the complications of soil pollution, these methods are usually employed together:
Biological method. Plants and microbes are used to repair the polluted soil. This method won’t damage the organic structure of the soil but usually needs a relatively long period to work.
Physical method. Thermal desorption, mechanism ventilation and vapor extraction are often used techniques in this method. The cost is relatively high but the process is faster than biological method.
Chemical method. In this method, chemicals are added to the soil to oxidize or deoxidize, chelate or combine with the heavy metal and organic pollutants, therefore to remove the hazardous and toxic substances from the soil. This method has high repair efficiency but also has risks of introducing other chemicals into the soil.
ChemLinked reported in this March that Hubei province became the first province in China to carry out a local soil protection law. With the issuance of the Action Plan, it’s believed that more regions will accelerate the legislative process and take more active effort on the soil quality improvement.
