The Shougang Corporation, one of China's major steel producers, is determined to shake off its polluter image and play a bigger role in controlling pollution in Beijing, according to one of the company's top officials.

Luo Bingsheng, a board chairman of the corporation, said that in addition to reducing its own pollution levels, the company will also provide assistance in the disposal of public waste and in general environmental issues in the city.

Located in the western outskirts of Beijing, Shougang, with an annual steel output of 6 million tons, is commonly regarded as one of Beijing's major polluters.

Faced with the possibility that the company and its 120,400 employees, could be relocated outside Beijing, Luo has instead opted to join the fight against pollution.

The company began to build its environmental protection capacities in 1995. The company's researchers are currently experimenting with a technology for the disposal of plastic waste using certain types of furnaces, Luo said. Through this method, 150,000 tons of plastic waste can be disposed of each year. "It is our hope that in this way, the problem of Beijing's 'white pollution' can be resolved," Luo said. "White pollution" in China refers to the littering of waste plastic articles.

Luo said that by 2005, the company will reduce its energy consumption in steel production by 30 percent and its annual coal consumption will drop from its present 4.1 million tons to 2.8 million tons. These reductions will in turn reduce the discharge of sulphur dioxide and dust by 31 percent.

(China Daily August 27, 2002)