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Updated: On August 4th, 2021, MEE officially published the final version of the Notice, in which the review of key tasks and rectification is required to complete before the end of this September, and the first round of self-investigation on the 10 current outstanding emission problems is required to complete before the end of this October.
On May 25, 2021, the China Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) published the draft Notice on Accelerating the Resolution of Current Prominent Problems in the Governance of Volatile Organic Compounds [1] and solicit comments from specific units. The notice puts forward the requirements for solving the outstanding problems of current VOC governance from three aspects and specifies the requirements for the investigation and rectification of ten processes.
In the first part of the notice, 4 prominent problems in current VOCs governance are summarized, including
Outstanding fugitive emissions;
Low comprehensive efficiency of governance facilities;
Emissions under abnormal working conditions have not been effectively controlled; and,
Insufficient source control.
In response to these prominent problems, the Notice proposes to review the key tasks of VOCs governance and the rectification of problems, investigate and rectify outstanding emissions problems, and strengthen the guidance and assistance of VOCs governance and capacity building. The review of key tasks and rectification shall be completed before the end of July, and the investigation of the 10 current outstanding emission problems shall be completed before the end of August.
For the investigation and rectification, 10 key points are specified in the annex to the Notice, including the storage tanks of volatile organic liquids, the loading and unloading of volatile organic liquids, LDAR, etc. Thereinto, the quality of products containing VOCs is also a prominent problem that need to be investigated and rectified. According to the Notice, for the quality of VOCs products, there are two outstanding issues. One problem is the product standards for VOCs content in coatings, inks, adhesives, and cleaning agents, etc. are not fully implemented and there are substandard products on the market. The other problem is the replacement ratio of low-VOCs products is low. The two problems result in the insufficient source control in VOC management.
In order to improve the quality of such products, the Notice requires key enterprises related to VOCs raw and auxiliary materials to record information such as product name, VOCs content, and use amount, etc. In addition, enterprises involved in the manufacture, sale, import, and use of VOCs products will be regularly random inspected. The VOCs content test reports of the products will be checked, and the products will be sampled and tested. Key industries shall increase the intensity of the source substitution of raw and auxiliary materials with low (no) VOCs content, formulate a replacement plan, and clarify the replacement schedule. Manufacturers of coatings, inks, adhesives, cleaning agents, and other products should be equipped with product labels when they leave the factory, indicating the product name, the field of use, applicable temperature and humidity, blending methods, and VOCs content under different blending methods.
