Water

Live by a smelly river

A senior official from China’s top environmental authority told local officials in Shantou, Guangdong Province, to move to live by the black and smelly Lianjiang River. Urging officials to live close to the polluted river may sound a bit unconventional, but it has the merit of making policy makers immediately sensitive to the misery of having to live daily by a foul river strewn with waste. It can put pressure on local authorities and urge them to come up with practical rectification strategies.

Cattle farmers look to cut Yangtze pollution

All big farms have renovated their sheds and built methane tanks to collect and compost manure. Factories have opened to produce organic fertilizer. Mushroom farms, an earthworm factory and a power plant were established. Now 95 percent of dung is recycled.

Working at the car wash just got a lot better

Environmental awareness has won this car wash company honors coveted by competitors. It applied for and acquired multiple patents on the strength of its self-developed water treatment device. Instead of using intensely acidic or alkaline detergent to spray foam, his company developed a dark orange solution he says is made from tangerine oil extract.

Air

Is Hangzhou Reversing Its Smoking Ban?

A full ban on smoking in indoor public places is already an irreversible tendency across the country. Hangzhou, as a typical environmentally friendly city, should not retreat from its strict ban on smoking; it should implement its original ban against all odds, living up to its nickname of "paradise on earth."

China releases three-year action plan for cleaner air

China's cabinet has released a three-year action plan on air pollution control, solidifying a timetable and roadmap for improving air quality. By 2020, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide should drop by more than 15 percent compared with 2015 levels, while cities which fail to meet the requirement of PM2.5 density should see their density of PM 2.5 fall by more than 18 percent from 2015 level, the plan said.

Energy

China Unveils Guideline to Win Battle against Pollution

China will develop and implement a three-year plan to fight air pollution, with much focus on regions like the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its neighbouring areas, and the Yangtze River Delta. Efforts will be made to improve the region's industry, energy, transport and land use structures.

An Inclusive Plan

As for environmental concerns about the Belt and Road Initiative, Ahmad cited China’s power projects in Pakistan as an example, saying that half of them were hydropower and green projects. China has also introduced smaller coal-fired projects with new technologies that can significantly reduce emissions.

Rediscovering the promise of nuclear power

In fact, nuclear fuel has 100,000 times the energy density of coal, so that a one-gigawatt nuclear plant would require only 15 hectares of land. Smaller modular plants could blend unobtrusively into the landscape. Moreover, nuclear ores are widespread geographically, and the fuel is easily transported and stockpiled. And a nuclear plant is more resilient to extreme weather than wind or solar plants.

Ecology

Large, But Still Developing

China's development in certain fields is still inadequate, and it is also faced with serious ecological challenges. Only a quarter of the 338 major cities in the country met the national air quality standard last year, and the government must now confront water, air and soil pollution, and improve and restore the environment.

Other

Prosecutors to Get Tougher with Financial, Environmental, Poverty-Relief Crime

Tong said the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) has issued a circular to provide judicial support for the country's "three tough battles," namely to forestall and defuse major risks, carry out targeted poverty alleviation, and control pollution.