CHINA
In a recent move, more than 20,000 environmental officials have started a combing operation all over China to inspect factories and close down errant units after the State Council or the cabinet issued an edict in end 1996 to step up environmental protection. Till recently, China has shut down almost 57,000 small polluting industries to safeguard the environment from rapid economic growth, reported the Legal Daily . These comprise 80.5 per cent of total number of units that had been blacklisted by the authorities.
According to the paper, most of the smaller enterprises that have been hit by the drive are units that produced paper, fertilisers and electroplates or extracted sulphur. The closure followed an anti-pollution campaign that had ended in the middle of last year spurring the government to close 999 small polluting paper mills. In fact, it has been assessed that rivers and lakes across China are lined with tens of thousands of factories, several of which have little or no wastewater treatment facilities.
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