Pollution – Battling Guangxi to Close 100 plants
June 8th, 2012 by Steve
NANNING – South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is to close more than 100 of its heavy-metal processing plants, in an effort to lessen pollution, it has been announced.
Government authorities have performed a comprehensive inspection of such industrial facilities in Guangxi, screening 154 plants against pollution control regulations, Liang Bin, chief of the region’s environmental protection department, said on Monday ahead of World EnvironmentDay falling on Tuesday.
Among the plants, 31 were required to take correctional measures before resuming production, and the other 123 were ordered to close, said Liang.
The inspection was initiated after cadmium contamination was detected in January on theLongjiang River in the region’s Hechi city. It killed a large number of fish and threatened thedrinking water supply for Liuzhou, a city with 1.5 million residents.
Two chemical companies were later found responsible for causing the contamination through illegal industrial waste discharges, and 10 of their managers were arrested for trial.
Guangxi is rich in nonferrous metal resources, and Hechi city is dubbed “a land of nonferrousmetal.
” Liang said heavy-metal pollution control is challenging in Guangxi because of the region’s limited budget and lagging production technologies.
The region has earmarked 25 million yuan ($3.9 million) this year to support 11 projects on heavy-metal pollution control and applied to central government for financial support withanother 126 similar schemes, with total spending of 4.5 billion yuan applied.
“We will further strengthen industrial supervision, upgrade requirements for new companies involving heavy metal, and facilitate the phaseout of backward production capacity,” accordingto Liang.
Filed under: Asia Pac Markets, General