Six enterprises in east China's Zhejiang Province published a
letter of apology in a local newspaper on Thursday, saying they are
sorry for polluting the environment and would rectify the
situation.
And at the same time, 23 factories in southwest China's Sichuan
Province had shut down or suspended production for failures in
pollution control.
The remorseful enterprises in Zhejiang included two paper mills,
two electroplating factories and two printing and dyeing factories.
They were ordered to apologize to the public by the municipal
bureau of environment protection of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang.
They were also fined.
Dai Beijun, chief of the provincial environmental watchdog, said
the apology order "is meant to shame pollution enterprises and
their executives and ensure that the public know what happens. We
want to tell the enterprises that the public detest pollution".
In the Hangzhou Daily letter, legal representatives of the six
enterprises said "we have been found discharging excessive
pollution recently. This is because we had not paid enough
attention to environmental protection nor fully obeyed the law and
regulations, and the pollution treatment facilities were not
operating properly".
They said "we sincerely apologize to all the people in Hangzhou
and are willing to accept criticism and advice".
They also promised to suspend production and invest more in
pollution control, so as to meet related requirements by the end of
next month.
The chief of the provincial environmental watchdog said they
were planning to implement the measure of ordering polluting
enterprises to apologize around the whole province.
Polluters shut down
Meanwhile, 23 factories in southwest China's Sichuan Province
had shut down or suspended production for failures in pollution
control and another power plant is scheduled to shut down at the
end of this month, announced the provincial environment watchdog on
Thursday.
The closed facilities, which number 13, include power plants and
cement factories, said Gu Shengwen, deputy director of the Sichuan
Environmental Protection Bureau. The other 10 facilities decided to
suspend operations after realizing it was impossible to meet the
government's requirements, Gu added.
At the beginning of the year, Sichuan ordered 200 facilities to
either control pollution, which meant meeting certain requirements
by certain deadlines, or face closure.
China faces the challenge of environmental deterioration amid
its rapid economic development. According to the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), sulfur dioxide
emissions in 2005 were 27.8 percent higher than in 2000. During
that same period, chemical oxygen demand (COD), a major index of
water pollution, fell only 2.1 percent.
Water pollution has been worsening as well: 26 percent of
surface water is totally unusable, 62 percent is unsuitable for
fish and 90 percent of the rivers running through cities are
polluted.
China will invest 1.35 percent of its gross domestic product
(GDP) each year for the next three years in environmental
protection, according to a five-year environmental protection plan
for 2006-2010 that was published last month.
In 2005, China spent 238.8 billion yuan (US$31.8 billion) on
environmental protection, accounting for 1.31 percent of that
year's GDP.
(Xinhua News Agency December 29, 2007)
