December 02, 2008

China closes 400 polluters in a drive to clean rivers

It is reported that more than 750 industrial firms have been closed down or ordered to improve their environmental standards following a two month campaign by the top environmental watchdog to clean up the China's rivers.

China’s State Environmental Protection Administration launched the campaign in July in six cities, two counties and five industrial parks along the Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe and Haihe rivers. Of the 1,162 firms investigated, 400 were closed down, 249 had their operations suspended while improvements were made to their environmental facilities, and 102 were given a deadline to correct wrongdoings. SEPA also recovered CNY 725 million (USD 96 million) in fines for polluting.

Mr Pan You deputy minister of the SEPA said "Punishment is not our aim. We want to push local industries to restructure their operations. He said the campaign was only run on a small scale. We still have a long way to go to curb the nationwide industrial expansion, which demands high volumes of energy and creates huge amounts of pollution."

Dealing with water pollution has become the SEPA's primary concern. Its figures showed that of the 1,406 accidents reported in 2005, water pollution accounted for nearly half. Chinese government has put the treatment of the river on the top of its working agenda and has allocated a budget of more than CNY 13 billion to fund more than 200 cleanup projects. According to the SEPA, 84 projects have already been completed or are under construction. Three wastewater treatment plants have been opened and 15 pollution sources have adopted clean production technologies.