Shanghai’s Jiading district is carrying on a clean air campaign in the industrial, construction and agriculture sectors during 2013-2017, with help from its environment administration.
The campaign aims to reduce and control air contaminants such as sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and nitric oxide. By 2017, the average concentration of 2.5 micron particulate matter is targeted at a 20 percent decrease compared with 2012.
The project has seen nearly 200 local enterprises adjust their industrial structure over the past year, and the government will accelerate a “phase-out” policy on those high energy-consuming companies which have been responsible for serious atmospheric pollution.
“One highlight of the clean air campaign is to solve the issue from the source of the pollution,” said an official from Shanghai Jiading Economic Commission.
Taking the case of Xuhang town, the forging, heat treatment and other big four traditional industries have become the focus of an industrial restructuring in recent years. Such local enterprises are largely dominated by coal, which so easily contributes to air pollution.
Last year, the town shut down a papermaking project, helping to reduce the equivalent of more than 5,300 tons of coal. And this year the government plans to adjust 4 companies, with a decrease in their total energy consumption by more than 3,000 tons.
Particularly worth mentioning are two local enterprises which contribute to the tax revenue of Jiading district by more than 5 million yuan ($ 801,667) every year. However, these two still face the fate of being shut down due to their projects not meeting the standards of green line construction in the town.
The campaign not only works with industrial adjustment and energy consumption, but also pays attention to details of improving the environment of polluting industries.
In Jiading, countless construction sites have serious dust issues. According to a recent news report, one journalist came to an ongoing construction project “Xinming Children’s Plaza” in Nanxiang town, but he could hardly see any blowing dust.
“We set a wide cleaning pool in the east gate and requested each truck to drive through it, just as if the tires were ‘taking a shower’. Even high pressure water jets are uses to wash the transport vehicles,” Yu Wenhua, the safety officer of the project department explained to the reporter. “For construction wastes which cannot be cleaned up within 48 hours, they are completely covered and encased in a concealed location.”
In addition, straw utilization has also been incorporated into the clean air plan. Since 2010, the Jiading government has prohibited straw burning and used the straw as a source of manufacturing organic fertilizer.
With the purpose of encouraging farmers to support the policy, the Jiading government gives a subsidy of 200 yuan ($32) per ton for the purchase of straw. Based on statistic from the agriculture department, 99.58 percent of straw is now used instead of burning.