The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) established an Environmental Engineering Design Research Center in Beijing on Monday to oversee technologies used in military pollution control projects.

Pollution prevention and control in PLA areas was included in national environmental plans for the first time last year, and the government has allocated special funds for the work.

The first batch of around 200 environmental protection programs have obtained funds and entered the construction process, the majority of which are to prevent water pollution and located in the drainage areas of polluted rivers and sea areas.

The research center is affiliated to the Academy of Engineering Design, part of the PLA’s General Armament Department, and is the successor of the academy’s environmental protection center.

Staff at the original center started research on sewage disposal at space flight launch sites, but continued to extend their sphere of enquiry. Now, almost all the technologies adopted in military environmental protection rely on their work.

In the past 20 years, they have made breakthroughs in areas such as treatment of rocket propellant, sewage disposal and recycling in military barracks, hospital waste disposal and scrapped ammunitions disposal. They have also successfully registered six national patents.