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Statistics and Management Goals of Pollutants from China MEP

According to the presentation given by Li Lei, the associate director of the Department of Pollution Prevention and Control (DPPC-MEP) in the China National Environmental Protection Bureau Chief Forum 2012, the DPPC-MEP will focus on management of heavy metal, chemical and hazard wastes at the next stage. (ChemLinked news released 17 Dec 2012). As a follow-up, this article outlines the overall management goals, together with the relevant statistics of the concerned substances. In addition, discussion is made around drawbacks of the status quo of China’s substance management.

Management Goals of Heavy Metals

According to Li Lei, incidences involving heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and cadmium have become attention-seeking public affairs in China these days. There were over 30 cases of severe heavy metal incidences since 2009, which have imposed serious public threats to Chinese people’s well-being.

The overall heavy metal management goals set by the MEP are 1) for the key regions, the pollutant discharge volume decreased by 15%; 2) for other regions, the pollutant discharge volume should be kept under the level of year 2007.

However, the key information such as the pollutant discharge level of 2007 as the baseline is still a mystery to the public. Based on research done by the ChemLinked reporter, the condition of the heavy mental pollution in China was always kept as a secret by the government, same as the pollutant discharge volume. This is really unfortunate as the public should have the right to know, and at the same time, social supervision and opinions should be of great importance to the formulation and enactment of governmental regulations.

Contemporary Fact of Heavy Metal Pollution in China

In China, the capacity and production of the heavy metal relevant industries are continuously increasing. According to the first pollutant discharge inspection conducted by the MEP in 2011, the overall heavy mental pollutant discharge condition is far from satisfactory. See Table 1 for details (percentage provided only if data was available).

Table 1: Comparisons of the heavy metal discharge annual volume between 2007 and 2011 across different major monitored substances and areas.

Year

Heavy Metal Discharge Annual Volume

Lead

Mercury

Chromium

Cadmium

Arsenic

In water

Key Districts

Non-Key

Districts

2007

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

Baseline

2011

Slightly decreased (1.7%)

Greatly increased (26.1%)

Increased

Increased

Increased

Similar

Decreased but up to 3/4 districts failed to meet the target

Increased (8%)

In addition, at least 20 million hectares of soil was polluted with heavy metals, which contribute to over 120 million tons of crop loss and over 20 billion RMB economic losses.

Key Polluting Prevention and Control Sectors

The DPPC-MEP plans to establish the key polluting prevention and control actions on 6 major industries, 14 key provincial regions and 60 focal types of Chemicals.

  •   6 Industries:

  • Oil refining,

  • Coking

  • Nuclear fuel processing,

  • Chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing

  • Pharmaceutical manufacturing

  • Chemical fiber manufacturing

  •   14 Provincial Regions:

  • Inner Mongolia

  • Guangdong

  • Jiangsu

  • Gansu

  • Zhejiang

  • Guangxi

  • Jiangxi

  • Sichuan

  • Henan

  • Yunnan

  • Hubei

  • Shanxi

  • Hunan

  • Qinghai

  •   60 Types of hazardous chemicals:

Nature: flammable, combustible and phosgene etc.

Examples: crude oil, methanol, ethylene oxide, ethylene, propylene oxide, phenol

Please visit ChemLinked's Regulatory Database for the complete “List of First Batch of Hazardous Chemicals under Priority Management”.

Existing Key Actions

  •   18 Feb 2011:

The “Twelfth Five-year Plan of the Heavy Metal Comprehensive Prevention and Control” was approved by the State Council of China.

  •   Late March 2012:

A great number of lead-acid battery factories were shut down due to disqualified performance in the MEP’s national battery inspection.

  •   22 Oct 2012:

The MEP issued and distributed the “Assessment Methods of the Implementation of the Twelfth Five-year Plan of the Heavy Metal Comprehensive Prevention and Control”. The information revealed from the adaptation of the “Assessment Methods” refers to table 1. “This is the first time for the government to produce public accessible information of the heavy mental discharge condition, so the region-specific information is not ready for public access yet.” said an official from the local Environmental Protection Bureau. However, according to the “Assessment Methods”, the detailed statistics will be available to the public on a region-specific basis from 2012.  

Moreover, the interim review and comprehensive assessment are scheduled to be carried out by the MEP in 2013 and 2016, respectively.

  •   Special Heavy Mental Pollution Management Fund for 2012:

According to Zhou Shengxian, head of the MEP, up to 3.2billion RMB would be spent as the Special Heavy Mental Pollution Management Fund in 2012. The distribution of the special fund will be connected to the outcome of the assessment introduced above. The governmental will cease the financial support to those regions and industries engaged in negative assessment outcome, inactive attitudes towards heavy mental pollution control as well as low overall efficacy in the pollution management.

One Step Forward

Apart from the performance of collective movements mentioned above, the MEP also encourages various market solutions. As a pioneer adopting such method, the Department of Environmental Protection of Shanxi Province (DEP-SX) has stressed in the “Shanxi Regulation of Reducing Pollutant Discharge” (SX-RRPD) “encourage the heavy pollution-prone units engaged in toxic and hazardous manufacturing or dangerous waste disposing to participate in the Environmental Pollution Liability Insurance (EPLI).”

In 2011, the DEP-SX and the Shanxi Bureau of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (SXB-CIRC) have co-issued the “Announcement of the Pilot Implementation of the EPLI” and “Measures for Administration of SX-EPLI”. The first batch of the pilot targets are industries of the following areas:

  • Coal mining,

  • Chemicals,

  • Non-coal mines mining,

  • Metallurgy,

  • Coking,

  • Electricity,

  • Medicine

  • Building materials

So far, over 68 target enterprises have participated in the EPLI, the total insurance premium is up to 11.56 million RMB with the liability limit as 750 million RMB. Eight incidences with total insurance proceeds of 750,000 RMB were covered by the EPLI up till now.

EPLI is considered as an effective way to improve an enterprise’s capability in managing environmental risks. In addition, EPLI can provide rapid and important support to the victims of pollution incidences. Therefore, the intensive governmental encouragement and active industrial participation of the EPLI may be a way out of the pollution dilemma in China. 

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