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By June 2018, China will finish its rectification of industrial parks in the Yangtze River economic belt. Enterprises that meet certain criteria are required to move or shut down operations.
After an investigation on Yangtze River pollution, China found that the chemical industry and closely associated industries were primarily to blame for the increasingly dangerous levels of pollution. Therefore, China has implemented a scheme to control chemical industrial pollution. Chemical industrial parks, enterprises or sewage outlets, located in environmentally sensitive areas, will be forced to stop by law.
Officials have issued a list of cities to be treated with priority. The list includes Yichang city in Hubei province, Yueyang city and Zhuzhou city in Hunan Province, Jiangxi province, and Luzhou city in Sichuan province.
Here are some examples of the measures that provinces take to rectify chemical industries:
Yichang city, Hubei province
At the end of 2016, there were 134 chemical enterprises taking up to more than one-third of the city’s industrial output. However, 25 chemical enterprises within 1 km of the Yangtze River waterfront were shut down. As is planned, the figure will drop to 0 by 2020.
Yueyang city, Hunan province
In the area of Dongting Lake, 234 out of 236 paper-making enterprises halted production to comply with environmental protection regulation. 47 out of 62 textile enterprises shut down. More than 4,000 livestock and poultry farms in the enforcement area were closed down or forced to move away.
Jiujiang economic development zone, Jiangxi
A well-known domestic papermaking enterprise planned to invest 20 billion yuan to build a production base, with an estimated tax revenue of 1.5 billion yuan. However, the proposal was rejected by the local officials as it would damage the environment.
Shandong province
Shandong plans to keep 155 chemical industrial parks and revoke or shut down 44.
The chemical industrial parks should be a specified minimum distance from urban areas, and not in an upwind direction. The parks must be equipped with centralized sewage treatment facilities with safety monitoring systems, ensuring a complete disposal of hazardous waste.
