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Pollutants emission permit system was established as the fundamental element of the management of pollutants emission in China. In early 2017, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) published the draft of the management Catalog of Fixed Pollution Sources and sought opinion from the public. After over half a year’s opinion collection and internal discussion, on July 28th 2017, MEP published the final version of the Management Catalog of Fixed Pollution Sources (2017 version).
The management catalogue includes 31 industries which are further divided into 78 sub-industries (2 fewer than the draft) and 4 general production processes. Any enterprise that belongs to these industries is required to obtain a pollutants emission permit.
The catalogue specifies the implementation deadline for each secondary industry. The latest ones are 2020, which is consistent with previous regulations. But local governments are allowed to carry out more radical implementation plans and require enterprises to obtain the permits sooner. Some scenarios of the industries are under priority management, while some are under simplified management. Compared with the draft, the final catalogue deleted the scenarios in which the management is postponed.
Heat-engine power plants and paper making industry were previously selected for trial of a pilot program to assess the feasibility and practical implementation of the pollutants emission permit system. At present, the application and issuance of permits for these two industries have already been completed and a total number of over 5,100 permits have been issued. MEP accumulated much experience during the process and got a better understanding of the practical difficulties facing enterprises and is confident about the extension of the application scope.
An enterprise only needs one emission permit even if it is involved in production activities in more than one industry. This permit should contain information of all the pollutants emission of this enterprise. Besides those in the catalogue, other enterprises also need to apply for the pollutants emission permit if they meet following criteria:
Listed in the priority pollution list;
Annual emission of sulfur dioxide or nitric oxides is over 250 ton;
Annual emission of smoke and dust is over 1000 ton;
Annual emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD) is over 30 ton;
Annual combined emission of ammonia-nitrogen, petroleum chemicals and volatile phenol together is over 30 ton;
Annual emission of other atmospheric or water pollutants equivalent is over 3000 (calculated based on the Law of Environmental Protection Tax).
