The prevalence of consumerism, the high population growth rate, and the increasing plight of garbage, which needs to be addressed, is an indisputable fact.
However, despite the high efficiency, cleanness and economic advantages of incineration, the question of whether to build waste incineration plants, especially in the vicinity of one's own home, is a matter of concern: will waste incineration release pollutants? Will the discharge meet the standards? Who can protect our safety?
At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of the Environment issued a circular on the implementation of a comprehensive industrial pollution source compliance emission plan, which deploys a blueprint for eight major industries to achieve full compliance, including the waste incineration industry.
The notification requirement indicates that by the end of 2017, eight industry plans to meet the standards, including waste incineration plants, had been implemented with notable success. Through these priority industries, the general industry will achieve sustained and consistent emissions from various industrial sources by 2020, a more robust system of environmental governance and environmental compliance.
For six months, the Ministry of the Environment has continued to work. On 22 June, Vice-Minister of the Environment Zhuang went to Anhui to conduct an on-site inspection of the implementation of environmental protection regulations for waste-burning enterprises. With regard to how the waste incineration industry achieves full-scale emissions, the Deputy Minister's answer is simple: the overall level of environmental management in the waste incineration industry is to be improved, with a focus on “loading, trees and connections”.
“Bulling” — forcing enterprises to strengthen environmental management
The term “loading” refers to the installation of automatic source monitoring equipment in all waste incineration facilities.
Waste incineration is important for promoting waste minimization, harmlessness and resourceization - it can effectively reduce the volume of waste by about 70 per cent and avoid water, gas and soil pollution from waste disposal, while thermal energy generated can also be used for power generation and heating. Garbage incineration solves the big problem of garbage sieges for us, but how can it be prevented from causing other pollution?
This time, the Ministry of the Environment has requested waste incineration companies to install automatic monitoring equipment to ensure that the environmental impact that they may have from time to time may be transparent, by monitoring in real time five pollutant indicators such as carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen chloride, and the temperature of the furnace, so as to ensure that the environmental impact of waste incineration is always transparent, thereby urging the enterprises to strengthen environmental management and enforce their primary responsibility for pollution management.
The “tree” — everyone has the right to monitor
The term “tree” means the release data that are to be made publicly available to society on display screens, and requires that the location be significant and easily accessible to the public.
In recent years, waste incineration plants around the world have often faced the “neighboring effect” of “talking about the color of waste incineration.” The lack of transparency in the disclosure of information and public scrutiny is undoubtedly a major reason for public perceptions of “demonization” of waste incineration projects.
This time, the Ministry of the Environment has asked waste incineration plants to set up a screen so that the “zero emissions” of pollutants can be effectively “tanned” in front of everyone, encouraging everyone to participate in monitoring and ensuring effective management of the emissions in compliance with the standards.
“Linking” — law enforcement regulation to maintain high pressure
`Link' is to further strengthen environmental law enforcement regulation by linking enterprise automated monitoring systems to the environmental sector.
With the establishment of the Consortium, data islands have been broken and will be of great benefit to efficient, high-pressure, high-precision regulatory enterprises in the environmental sector. At the same time, public access to information on the business environment will be improved. For example, through third-party environmental data platforms such as the “Blue Map APP”, real-time monitoring data from waste incineration plants can be easily accessed on mobile phones by moving fingers. The “evidence” key can immediately be uploaded to the 12369 web reporting platform if environmental violations, such as emissions exceeding standards, are detected.
On the day of the on-site inspection, Vice-Minister Zhong Ting told the head of the renewable energy company China Energy Conservation (HCC) that: “The public's dissatisfaction should be used as a measure of the effectiveness of environmental governance”.
Recognition and trust in the waste incineration industry will ultimately be achieved through a sophisticated environmental management, full and timely public monitoring of information and public scrutiny.