A leading Chinese environmentalist yesterday challenged
multinational companies (MNCs) to commit to not using factories
found to pollute China's air and water.
"China is manufacturing for the rest of the world, but while we
export all these cheap products, the waste is being dumped in
China's backyard, contaminating our air, water, soil and coastal
waters,"
Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute
of Public and Environmental Affairs, told reporters in Hong Kong.
Ma said a third of the southern part of China, including Hong
Kong, was now affected by sulfur dioxide, a noxious air pollutant
caused by industrialization that can cause respiratory problems. In
Yiyang City, Hunan Province, 97 percent of rainfall was sulfuric
acid rain in 2006, he said.
Ma's agency launched an online interactive database this week
that names 4,300 companies that have violated China's air pollution
standards over the last few years. Last year, he named and shamed
some 9,400 firms pumping untreated effluence into China's
waterways.
"We call on the big-box retailers and large-scale industry to
manage their suppliers in a more responsible way. If they one day
openly announce that 'we won't use polluters as our suppliers,' we
think that will have a very big impact on China's pollution
control."
Since the launch of the online water pollution database, only 50
companies have come forward to find out how to get their names
removed.
All the data is pulled from publicly available government
sources and can be as brief as one line, or very detailed about
what kind of effluence they have flooded a stream with, Ma
added.
(Shanghai Daily December 14, 2007)
