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Heavy metal pollution will face severe penalty
- Details
- Category: Governmental News
- Published: Wednesday, 10 September 2014 14:55
In June of 2013, Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate issued related judicial interpretation to lower the incriminate standard for environmental crime. For example, if the illegal discharge of pollutants with heavy metal and everlasting organic pollutants are three times as big as the state or provincial pollutant discharge standard, it will be regarded as crime, no matter whether it has caused personal or property damage. At the same time, thanks to the "Water Treatment Campaign" in the province since the end of 2013, departments concerned have intensified its treatment for environment pollution.
A printing and dying mill in the city was punished with a 500,000 yuan fine because of limit-exceeding discharge of waste water.
The decrease of incriminate standard has brought the rise of environment pollution crime. Statistics show that since January to August 68 criminal cases were reported, 74 suspects of environmental crime have been arrested, and another 5 are under arrest. In the first half of this year, Ningbo has issued environment pollution tickets worth 40 million yuan to treat environmental crime. 90 percent of the tickets are caused by illegal discharge of heavy metal from industries like electroplate, printing and dying, aluminum oxidation, and acid pickling of stainless steel.
Heavy metal discharge from 9 illegal electroplate plants greatly exceed standard
Since March 2014, policemen found 9 illegal electroplate plants in the deserted industrial park in Cixi Xinpu Town whose heavy metal in the discharged waste water has severely exceeded the standards. On June 12th, the police and the Environmental Protection Bureau destroyed these plants, and 9 people were arrested.
Since 2013, the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and the Public Security Bureau together have launched about 720 campaigns to crack down the illegal activities.
Low cost and high pay for crime is the main cause for the illegal discharge. Take electroplate for example, it needs little investment but will have very high return. "If you just put in 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, you can open an small electroplate plant. But it will cost tens of thousands of yuan to buy a waste-water treatment equipment," an official from the Municipal Environment Monitoring Team said, "Therefore, they dare to take risks." "Another reason is market demand", he analyzed. The manufacturing industry in Ningbo is well developed. Products like household appliance, stationery, machinery need acid pickling, parkerising, electroplate or electrolysis polishing. In particular, there is great demand in Cixi, Yuyao and Yinzhou where there are many hardware factories. Under the current environmental approval, some illegal electroplate and electrolysis polishing self-employed firms were born.
The technologies have to be upgraded to increase the productivity without increasing pollution. On the one hand, the departments concerned should strengthen the treatment on key trades and carry out joint crack-down. On the other hand, we have to speed up the technology upgrading of the serious pollution industries, promote their industrial transformation so as to increase productivity and decrease discharge.
It is also suggested that the popularization of the law should be pushed forward to promote environmental protection awareness of the enterprises. In fact, many environmental crimes involving heavy metal are unconscious ones. The popularization of laws can help to prevent and avoid such crimes.
Besides, door-to-door guidance is also necessary to increase the environmental management of the enterprises.
