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Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
Outrageous pollution poisons our children
By Wu Jiayin |
October 23, 2009, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A SERIES of heavy metal pollution scandals - involving thousands of poisoned children in several provinces - should sound the alarm: these enterprises need to clean up their act, once and for all.
The dangers of polluting the environment and the people who live near mining and smelting enterprises must be taken to heart.
Blood tests last week on over 3,000 children under 14 in China's biggest lead smelting base in Jiyuan City, Henan Province showed at least one-third of them have excessive lead levels, People's Daily reported on October 16.
The culprit is the long-term accumulation of pollution by local lead producing companies.
"We do bear responsibility for the pollution. Some pollution has accumulated over the past 20 years or more and the plant is too near homes," Yang Anguo, board chairman of Yuguang Gold and Lead Group, the largest lead producer in the country, admitted to the Xinhua news agency.
After the news broke, the city government suspended production at 32 of the 35 electrolytic lead plants and on the pollution-prone production lines of the other three major plants. It also relocated villagers who live too near the smelters and offered free treatment to children who have been poisoned.
However, a report by 21st Century Business Herald on October 22 said that Yuguang Gold and Lead Group was still operating and discharging excessive amounts of pollutants after the incident.
As a Netizen commented: "What a tragedy that some business should make money at the cost of people's lives."
Late last month, over 100 children living near Shanghang Huaqiang Battery Co Ltd in Shanghang County of Longyan City, Fujian Province were found to have excessive lead in their blood.
The reason was that the battery company discharges sulfuric acid, heavy metals and others poisonous substances into its nearby creek without any treatment, seriously polluting the water in the area, said a report by Southern Weekly on October 10.
"An enterprise that lacks a sense of social responsibility can't achieve sustainable development; and a society that lacks enterprises with strong sense of social responsibility can't realize healthy development," Zhou Qinye, vice president of the Shanghai Stock Exchange told a forum on Corporate Social Responsibility held by Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI) on October 17.
China first recognized environmental protection as a basic national policy in 1970s and listed sustainable development as a national strategy in 1990s.
Since 2000, China has been throwing its weight behind harmonious development of man and nature.
However, China failed to meet its major targets on environmental protection - for example, in reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions - set by the 10th five-year plan (2001-2005), said Chen Shanrong, deputy chief of Bureau of Environmental Supervision, Ministry of Environmental Protection. One reason was lack of effective supervision, he acknowledged.
Chen said that last year, China's total COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) emissions (not including those from agriculture) were 13 million tons, 65 percent more than the self-purification capacity of the environment.
Total SO2 emissions last year (not including those from agriculture) even reached 23 million tons, nearly doubling the self-purification capacity of the environment.
False belief
Some firms are reluctant to invest in environmental protection in the false belief that costs are too high. Chen countered that argument, giving this example:
In 2004, the area between Hunan Province, Guizhou Province and Chongqing Municipality became almost uninhabitable area due to many factories' illegal manganese mining there.
Factories piled up the residues without proper treatment, thus the manganese seriously polluted the land and water. The originally clean river turned black.
The poisoned water was not only undrinkable and toxic for fish and shrimps, but it leached into the soil, reducing grain production. Strange ailments were reported by residents in the area.
Meanwhile, the low extraction costs enabled the factories to sell the manganese at an extremely low price on the global market, seriously disrupting development of the whole industry.
Identifying the problem, the central government took three years to standardize the manganese production and residue treatment as well as to restore the environment. The outcome turned out to be promising: the environment improved, pollution was reduced and the GDP of manganese-related industries in the area tripled.
Indeed, enterprises need to be monitored and encouraged to do good.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange has created a social responsibility index this year. Only 100 stocks that disclose their social responsibility reports and rank high in their social contribution per share will be included in the index, said Zhou Qinye from the exchange.
The calculation of social contribution per share is a company's net profits plus bank loan interests paid, taxes paid, donation to communities, employees' salaries paid and minus the cost of environmental pollution the company made.
Hopefully, encouraging more disclosure on companies' CSR fulfillment will put more pressure on them, driving them to do better.
The dangers of polluting the environment and the people who live near mining and smelting enterprises must be taken to heart.
Blood tests last week on over 3,000 children under 14 in China's biggest lead smelting base in Jiyuan City, Henan Province showed at least one-third of them have excessive lead levels, People's Daily reported on October 16.
The culprit is the long-term accumulation of pollution by local lead producing companies.
"We do bear responsibility for the pollution. Some pollution has accumulated over the past 20 years or more and the plant is too near homes," Yang Anguo, board chairman of Yuguang Gold and Lead Group, the largest lead producer in the country, admitted to the Xinhua news agency.
After the news broke, the city government suspended production at 32 of the 35 electrolytic lead plants and on the pollution-prone production lines of the other three major plants. It also relocated villagers who live too near the smelters and offered free treatment to children who have been poisoned.
However, a report by 21st Century Business Herald on October 22 said that Yuguang Gold and Lead Group was still operating and discharging excessive amounts of pollutants after the incident.
As a Netizen commented: "What a tragedy that some business should make money at the cost of people's lives."
Late last month, over 100 children living near Shanghang Huaqiang Battery Co Ltd in Shanghang County of Longyan City, Fujian Province were found to have excessive lead in their blood.
The reason was that the battery company discharges sulfuric acid, heavy metals and others poisonous substances into its nearby creek without any treatment, seriously polluting the water in the area, said a report by Southern Weekly on October 10.
"An enterprise that lacks a sense of social responsibility can't achieve sustainable development; and a society that lacks enterprises with strong sense of social responsibility can't realize healthy development," Zhou Qinye, vice president of the Shanghai Stock Exchange told a forum on Corporate Social Responsibility held by Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI) on October 17.
China first recognized environmental protection as a basic national policy in 1970s and listed sustainable development as a national strategy in 1990s.
Since 2000, China has been throwing its weight behind harmonious development of man and nature.
However, China failed to meet its major targets on environmental protection - for example, in reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions - set by the 10th five-year plan (2001-2005), said Chen Shanrong, deputy chief of Bureau of Environmental Supervision, Ministry of Environmental Protection. One reason was lack of effective supervision, he acknowledged.
Chen said that last year, China's total COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) emissions (not including those from agriculture) were 13 million tons, 65 percent more than the self-purification capacity of the environment.
Total SO2 emissions last year (not including those from agriculture) even reached 23 million tons, nearly doubling the self-purification capacity of the environment.
False belief
Some firms are reluctant to invest in environmental protection in the false belief that costs are too high. Chen countered that argument, giving this example:
In 2004, the area between Hunan Province, Guizhou Province and Chongqing Municipality became almost uninhabitable area due to many factories' illegal manganese mining there.
Factories piled up the residues without proper treatment, thus the manganese seriously polluted the land and water. The originally clean river turned black.
The poisoned water was not only undrinkable and toxic for fish and shrimps, but it leached into the soil, reducing grain production. Strange ailments were reported by residents in the area.
Meanwhile, the low extraction costs enabled the factories to sell the manganese at an extremely low price on the global market, seriously disrupting development of the whole industry.
Identifying the problem, the central government took three years to standardize the manganese production and residue treatment as well as to restore the environment. The outcome turned out to be promising: the environment improved, pollution was reduced and the GDP of manganese-related industries in the area tripled.
Indeed, enterprises need to be monitored and encouraged to do good.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange has created a social responsibility index this year. Only 100 stocks that disclose their social responsibility reports and rank high in their social contribution per share will be included in the index, said Zhou Qinye from the exchange.
The calculation of social contribution per share is a company's net profits plus bank loan interests paid, taxes paid, donation to communities, employees' salaries paid and minus the cost of environmental pollution the company made.
Hopefully, encouraging more disclosure on companies' CSR fulfillment will put more pressure on them, driving them to do better.
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