$Unique_ID{COW00880} $Pretitle{260} $Title{China Environmental Protection in China. Part 1} $Subtitle{} $Author{New Star Publishing} $Affiliation{Foreign Language Press, Beijing} $Subject{pollution environmental protection city water new china control environment plant} $Date{1989} $Log{} Country: China Book: What's New in China Author: New Star Publishing Affiliation: Foreign Language Press, Beijing Date: 1989 Environmental Protection in China. Part 1 Foreword Never before have the people of the world needed so strongly to give concern and protection to the earth, the only celestial body in space which has the necessary conditions to nurture human existence - because today it faces serious pollution, blind development of industry and technology, irrational exploitation of natural resources and ever-expanding deserts. And what about China? She is also confronted with the threat of pollution. Painful lessons have made her realize that while carrying out large-scale economic construction, she must give consideration to environmental protection. In fact, China has been adopting various measures for this purpose. This booklet gives a general introduction to China's environmental protection status quo. Articles entitled "Protecting the Environment" and "China's Struggle to Safeguard Her Environment" by Qu Geping, head of the State Bureau of Environmental Protection, explain the achievements and problems of China in such work during the period from 1949 to 1985; "Luoyang: Protecting Public Health and Ancient Relics" and "'Smoke City' Cleans Up Its Air" tell what Luoyang and Lanzhou did in protecting the environment, while "Gongxian County: A Negative Example" reveals the shortcomings of the country. Readers can gain insight into China's efforts in keeping her deserts from extending by reading "Fighting Back the Deserts" and "Creating Farmland from Deserts." Protecting the Environment QU GEPING China takes environmental protection seriously, for as a socialist country her highest principle is to safeguard and foster the interests of the people. Some good results have been achieved. One of the problems that arises with widespread use of chemical insecticides is pollution of the soil, water and crops, which directly or indirectly endangers the people's health. These insecticides also kill many beneficial insects and birds, thus reducing natural preventives of plant diseases and insect pests. China's agro-scientists sought to cut down on these undesirable effects through using selective insecticides, mixtures and thinner solutions. When this did not fundamentally solve the problem they turned to biological control. Some success has been gained in employing beneficial insects and pathogenic microbes to prevent and control plant diseases and pests. Insects like trichogramma, ladybrids and green lacewings kill pests that harm grain, oil crops, cotton and trees. Microbes control the corn borer, pine moth and rice plant skipper. Antibiotics are employed to prevent rice sheath and culm blight, rice blast, millet smut and apple rot. In rice-growing areas ducks turned out into the paddy fields to eat rice hoppers get rid of 70 to 80 percent of them. Such measures are being widely introduced throughout China. Figures for 1978 show that they were used on 6,700,000 hectares of land, counter-insects on 2,070,000 ha. and antibiotics on 2,000,000 ha. against plant diseases and 1,800,000 against pests. Ducks were used to kill hoppers on 670,000 ha. of paddy fields. Biological control networks have been set up in many regions, as well as pest forecast stations and biological breeding farms. Millions of peasants are taking part in this work and cooperating with the scientists on control. Eighty percent of China's population lives in the countryside where brush and other vegetation is the traditional domestic fuel. About 500 million tons a year of such fuel, the equivalent of 400 million tons of coal, is burned and thus does not return to the soil as organic matter. In the past in some places indiscriminate tree-felling for fuel aggravated soil erosion and began to affect the climate. New Sources of Energy New sources of energy are being promoted in the countryside to protect the natural environment and the ecological balance. Chief ones are small hydropower stations and marsh gas. China has water resources for small or medium-sized hydropower stations capable of producing a total of 150 million kilowatts. A total of 88,000 such stations have been set up in three-fourths of China's 2,100 counties, with an installed capacity of 5,300,000 kw. These now provide an inexpensive source of power and lighting and will play a big role in modernizing agriculture. Marsh gas is also widely used. Home garbage, night soil and vegetation are fermented in sealed methane-generating pits, each of which can serve one or several households. By 1978 China had 7,000,000 of them and they had become the main source of energy for cooking and lighting in 21 counties. Altogether 35,000,000 people throughout the country are cooking or lighting with methane. Marsh gas does not pollute the environment and the residue after fermentation is good organic fertilizer. In addition, fermentation in the generating pits kills most bacteria in the night soil as well as eggs of parasites such as liver fluke and hookworms, thus greatly lowering the chance for spread of disease that exists with unfermented night soil. Curbing Industrial Pollution Pollution is in some measure cut by the policy followed since liberation of setting up new industries throughout the country instead of being concentrated in the coastal cities as they were before. The policy is also to build smaller, scattered industrial towns to avoid concentration of population and the pollution that accompanies it. Many measures are taken to transform or renovate existing enterprises to cut pollution. They include comprehensive utilization of raw materials and recycling of toxic substances into some useful product. Gas from oil refining serves as raw material for synthetic fibers and rubber, plastics and chemical fertilizer. Factory and mine tailings, instead of being dumped and covering up cultivable land, are reprocessed to yield valuable industrial chemicals and chemical fertilizer, and made into cement bricks and refractory materials. Several hundred products are being recovered from water expelled from chemical, pharmaceutical and light industrial plants. Factories contributing to inner city pollution are moved to the suburbs, and when new ones are set up they are built some distance from the city. As an initial measure, those discharging gases must be placed downwind from the cities and those expelling polluted water must lead it away from rivers or lakes. In the atmosphere of anarchism fostered by Lin Biao and the gang of four during the cultural revolution such regulations were ignored in many factories and mines. In the past few years the authorities have reviewed existing laws on environmental protection, drafted some new ones and made efforts to put them into effect. Unfortunately, solving many of the problems takes time and money, so solutions can be reached only step by step. Starting from what is feasible in the current period, in 1978 the state set dates by which 167 industrial and mining enterprises with serious pollution problems must solve them or be closed down. Research is being done on control of city noise and air and water purification, and some measures have been taken. Proper salvage of refuse, both from home and industry, also helps keep the environment clean. Between 1956 and 1977 the state collected 89,000,000 tons of reusable refuse, including leftover materials, discarded equipment, glass, plastics, rubber, scrap metal, rags and paper. Because through treatment and reprocessing it could be turned into something useful, it was valued at 19.5 billion yuan. In some cities refuse like vegetable leaves and fruit peels is taken to the suburbs for composting as fertilizer. Saving a Lake A general survey of river, lake and coastal pollution near cities has been made in the past few years. Cleaning up the Guanting reservoir, Baiyangdian Lake, Jiyun Canal and the Zibo industrial district has been some of the initial projects. Ya'er Lake in Hubei province on the middle reaches of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River is a shallow freshwater system consisting of 13 small lakes which used to teem with fish, shrimp and lotus. Three chemical plants built around the lake caused serious pollution and were slowly poisoning all life in them. One of them, Yanjia Lake, became a "death lake." Its water instantly lethal to all marine life. After the fall of the gang of four a big army of government workers, technical personnel and 20,000 rural commune members began a battle to purify the lake. Over two years they built four sets of connecting pools covering a total of 200 hectares into which the chemical-laden water is drained and purified through the use of algae. Gradually Ya'er Lake has resumed its purity. Last year it yielded 2,500 tons of fish, more than in any previous year. Many new measures are being utilized to prevent pollution or cut it down to a minimum. They include the use of mercuryless instruments, electroplating without cyanides, recycling of waste water from oil fields, ferment molting treatment for leather and paper manufacture with ammonium nitrite. The Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, issued by the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress in September 1979, will give us a firmer ground for the continuing battle against pollution. China's Struggle to Safeguard Her Environment QU GEPING As in most other countries, pollution problems in China have gone beyond acceptable limits. Thus, the Seventh Five-Yean which begins this year, calls for stronger control over air, water, soil and noise pollution, and much improved protection of the environment, especially in areas of concentrated population and industrial growth. Most of China's cities have serious pollution problems. In the north people heat and cook with coal, the main cause of bad air. Surface and underground water is contaminated, traffic noise far too high. For some years inadequate city planning allowed many factories to be built in downtown areas, and now huge sums are required to relocate them. China is today paying for its rapid economic growth without sufficient attention to environmental protection - the old road of "pollution first, control later" of the industrial countries. She began to take a good look at the results only in the late 70s. Nine out of ten of the country's cities now include pollution control in their planning. This requires existing enterprises to tackle their pollution problems by themselves. Those which can't are closed, merged with other enterprises, shifted to different production, or relocated. In 1981 and 1982 alone 10,000 factories were handled this way. New industries must incorporate environmental protection equipment in their design, construction and production. Now 85 percent of all medium and large enterprises have done this. An important way to reduce pollution is to expand the use of cleaner fuels. Coal, the main fuel in the cities, is a major obstacle. Specially designed briquets that reduce smoke and dust are being made to relace raw coal, and fuel concentrates are gradually eliminating the old coal-fired boilers. Gas is being more widely used. Half of Beijing's residents now have central heating and 70 percent have piped or bottled gas Large cities are being encouraged to handle environmental problems with a comprehensive approach. Last October the State Council called a national conference on urban environmental affairs at which mayors of the major cities analyzed their experience and planned ways to strengthen control and management. Rural enterprises have developed rapidly in the last eight years, playing an important role in the economy and raising countryside living standards. But poor management and lax enforcement of existing regulations has brought much pollution and ecological damage. Government regulations now state unequivocably that factories which are harmful to the environment may not be built in residential areas, water source zones, scenic areas or nature preserves. They must be developed in proper balance with local resources, technological conditions and the environment. Enterprises that produce little or no pollution, such as farming, stock breeding and service trades, are encouraged. Those which cause serious pollution are prohibited. More attention is now being given to maintaining a natural ecological balance and recycling wastes. Some rural areas have become models in this. In Shunde county in Guangdong province the peasants plant sugarcane on dry land and rice in irrigated land, raise silkworms on mulberry leaves, chop up sugarcane leaves for fish food, and use pond mud enriched by fish droppings as fertilizer. In Jiangsu's Wuxi county, the towns, villages, factories and farmlands are well located. Factories are dispersed. Both industry and agriculture have been developed in harmony with the ecology. These two areas provide examples for other plains areas. The nationwide effort to plant trees and grass - a million hectares of grass and 130,000 of trees a year - also helps protect the ecology and prevent erosion. The "Green Great Wall" shelterbelt in the north has reached six million hectares. China now has a number of laws and regulations on environmental protection - though local enforcement is not yet adequate. The main ones are "Law on Pollution Control of Water Resources," "Endangered Animals and Plants under Protection," and standards for pollution discharge for 40 industries. Factories must maintain a waste water recycling rate above 90 percent, noise below 65 decibels, and dust and air pollution elimination above 90 percent. In 1984 the State Council established the Environmental Protection Commission and the State Bureau of Environmental Protection. All provinces and autonomous regions have corresponding organs, forming a national network on environmental management. All provinces and autonomous regions have also been asked to survey their local situations and submit reports, together with their plans to strengthen environmental management. A few provinces have already completed this work. A national monitoring network has also taken shape, with 1,144 stations. Automatic air pollution monitoring systems in the cities and a water monitoring network on the rivers and offshore waters provide essential data to guide control efforts. Research in environmental protection is being done by 7,000 scientists in 69 institutes, and 5,000 university students are majoring in this field. Sharing international concern over the growing abuses of man's environment, China cooperates with 50 countries and eight international organizations, including the U.N.'s Development Program and Environmental Planning Program. Luoyang: Protecting Public Health and Ancient Relics Luoyang in Henan province, in China's central plains area, boasts a history of some 3,000 years. As the ancient capital of nine dynasties, it is full of important cultural relics. Today it strikes some visitors as a park-like city with clean air and streets, trees and shrubs, flowerbeds and fountains in addition to its historic sites. But environmentally speaking, the city has had its ups and downs in protecting the welfare of its people and its precious monuments. Among the area's historic treasures are the Longmen Grottoes, featuring Buddhist statues carved out of sheer cliffs by the Yi River to the south of the city; White Horse Temple, China's earliest Buddhist monastery (first century A.D.); and archaeological sites such as Erlitou, capital of the Xia dynasty (2205-1766 B.C.) Yanshi, capital of the Shang dynasty (1766-1402 B.C.), the Imperial City of the Zhou dynasty (1122-247 B.C.), and remains of the capitals of the Han (25-220) and Wei dynasties (493-534) and of the eastern capital of the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynast In 1953, shortly after the founding of the People's Republic, Luoyang became one of the key cities scheduled for development. In order to build up industries and at the same time preserve its ancient heritage, the old city was left intact and a new section built right next to it, on the ruined grounds of what had once been an imperial park. Hundreds of factories were built there, including tractor, bearing and mining machinery plants, and a copper processing works. The new city, now 79 square kilometers in area, is 17 times the size of the old. Like many other cities in China, during the 1960s and early 70s Luoyang let its environment become polluted by waste water, gas and traffic noise in the course of the drive to build modern industries. City leaders were not conscious of problems being created. Now that knowledge has sunk in, together with the realization that historical cities like Luoyang need even better-than-average protective measures. In 1982 the Luoyang municipal government launched a campaign to create a more healthful and attractive environment. As a first step it repaired and expanded the main roads, cemented packed-earth roads and divided five main streets into center and curb lanes. This step alone got rid of a lot of air-borne dust and dirt. In 1983 the repairs extended to small streets and lanes. In that year the city completed ten major street construction projects, including a large street park decorated with a striking fountain and a large statue of the Peony Goddess. In 1984 the city undertook 12 projects covering the repair of more streets, landscaping of the main streets and renovation of a botanical garden. In addition it repaired and built more public lavatories, bringing their number to 500 throughout the city. It also repaired and tarred 222 small streets and lanes in the old city. That year 23 main streets and 50 lanes met the city's hygienic standard. In 1985, about 33 percent of the city's households began to use central heating and gas for cooking instead of burning coal briquets that fouled the air every winter. And the city's biggest industrial polluter, a tractor plant, basically brought its waste products under control. An electroplating factory, a chemical plant and 22 other small factories were moved from densely populated areas and scenic spots to the city's leeward suburban areas. Twenty-one hospitals purified their waste water, and new regulations significantly lowered traffic noise. Environmental protection has become part of the routine work of the Luoyang municipal government, with one vice-mayor specifically in charge of it. Four times a year top officials hear presentations by the city environmental protection department and make decisions on environmental priorities for the coming period. The government also holds an annual press conference to report publicly the state of the city's environment and to announce new targets and regulations. In 1979, at the first press conference, Mayor Wu Zhenguo declared that he ought to be removed from office if he failed to solve the basic pollution problems and check emerging new ones. He announced that new industrial or other projects which did not take account of environmental protection would be halted temporarily. Those that were already being built could not start production without adequate safeguards. Units which defied the rules would not be supplied with water and electricity. The mayor announced a new prohibition against dumping contaminated water into the city's drainage pipelines, with stiff penalties for violations. In Luoyang's busy streets it is illegal for drivers to sound their horns. When this order was first initiated, Mayor Wu Zhenguo and Vice-Mayors Liu Dexu and Dou Zuwan took turns going into the streets to explain the rules and help enforce them. According to the noise monitors in Luoyang's major streets traffic sounds are now all under 68 decibels, lower than the state-set standard. The city government firmly supports its environmental protection officials. Last June a coal briquet plant was called to account for its noisy operation, which disturbed the life and work of people nearby. When environmental officials called a halt in production until the problem was solved, top plant managers gave them a hard time and argued that they were interfering with an important economic activity. City leaders promptly criticized the plant and ordered it to comply with regulations. One of Luoyang's chief methods of controlling pollution is signing agreements with factories setting time limits for compliance with environmental standards. Those which don't fulfill the agreements are heavily fined. Luoyang has the country's biggest copper processing plant. Its sub-plant No. 3 used to release acid smoke, a terrible pollutant, into the open air. Under an agreement with the environmental protection department, the plant spent 560,000 yuan to build a purifying system which solved the problem. The yellow chemical smoke pouring out of a steel casting shop of the city's Tractor Plant No. 1 was once a real health menace. In 1984 the environmental department signed an agreement with the factory, and it in turn made an agreement with its foundry shop. If the shop failed to control its emissions by a certain date, its director would be the first to be fined. The sub-plant quickly organized a special group to tackle the problem. New techniques suggested by its specialists cost the plant two million yuan. This not only eliminated the yellow smoke, but also, to the factory's surprise, had economic benefits. Productivity rose four-fold. Now each year the steel casting shop saves 2.5 million yuan from its lowered consumption of pig iron, produces 30,000 tons of steam with surplus heat created by the control system, and recovers 1,500 tons of ferric oxide. Luoyang also has a particularly good record in recent years of protecting its cultural relics. The old city has been stored and renovated. The government alloted special funds to refurbish the Longmen Grottoes and other historic sites. To protect the underground cultural relics of the Imperial City of the Zhou dynasty, the above-ground site was turned into a park for growing peonies. Luoyang has been famous for this flower since the 7th century, and now every spring hundreds of people come for its peony festival. The sites of the capitals of the Xia, Shang, Han and Wei dynasties, and the imperial tombs in Luoyang are all under special state protection. No large-scale construction is allowed in these areas. Smaller structures must first get approval from the city's cultural relics management bureau. Before building begins the underground foundation is surveyed. If historical relics are found, the construction unit has to renew the approval and guarantee a safe excavation of the relics under the supervision of archaeologists. If important discoveries are made, construction stops immediately and the site is restored to its original form.