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In China, bigger focus has been placed on the treatment of new pollutants in recent years. On May 24, 2022, the Chinese General Office and the State Council officially approved and released the Action Plan of New Pollutants Treatment, which vows to improve China's new pollutants treatment capacity significantly by 2025. It stipulates that
"By 2023, the first round of investigations on basic information of key chemical substances in key industries, and investigations on detailed information of the first batch of priority chemicals subject to environmental risk assessment, shall be finished".
As per China MEE's outlined key tasks in 2023, similar requirements were reaffirmed early this year to assess the environment risk status of new pollutants in China. To address this issue, there's an urgent need to establish a sound system for the statistical investigation of chemical environmental information. This article will navigate enterprises through how to participate in this work.
Who shall take part in?
Firstly, enterprises need to determine whether their industry is within the target industries that require investigation, and then make clear whether the chemicals they handle are chemicals subject to the investigation. If all are "yes", they need to fill out the corresponding investigation forms and submitted them via the specific online platform - National Chemical Production and Use Environmental Information Management System.
Target industries
The scope of industries requiring chemical investigations covers 120 sub-categories under the category of "Manufacture (13-43)" in GB/T 4754 Industrial Classification for National Economic Activities, covering textile, paper and paper products, chemicals and chemical products, pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemical and botanical products, rubber and plastics products, fabricated metal products, etc.
Target chemicals
The target chemicals for chemical investigation are divided into four major categories depending on their nature, including:
Chemicals of high concern, high yield and high environmental detection rates (3,960 types)
Priority assessment chemicals and priority control chemicals (40 types)
*They are chemicals in the First Batch of Chemical Substances for Priority Assessment of Environmental Risks, Catalogue of Priority Chemicals (1st Batch in 2017 and 2nd Batch in 2022).
New pollutants subject to priority management (14 types)
*They are chemicals in a national inventory - List of New Pollutants for Priority Management (2023). Local authorities could carry out the local version of control policies for the new pollutants in the official list based on the technical feasibility and economic & social impact. Take Shanghai for example, its List includes two more types of new pollutants, i.e., BPA and microplastics (Read more).
Other POPs, and chemicals under the Minamata Convention on Mercury and Mercury Compounds
*They are POPs including PFOS-related compounds, deBDE, short-chain chlorinated paraffins, PFOA, its salts and PFOA-related compounds, as well as mercury and mercury compounds.
For each major category, different information is required (see table below).
Target enterprises shall submit relevant investigation information of 2022 to local authorities in a timely manner. ChemLinked got first-hand information that, the deadline for submission may be 31 August 2023. An official who wished to remain anonymous shared at an offline seminar that, “Departments of ecology and environment at provincial level shall report all the submitted information for 2022 to China MEE before 30 November 2023. And from 2024, the corresponding investigation information of the previous year shall be reported to China MEE before 30 April each year.”
