CCTV News: On April 23, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment held a regular press conference in April. Pei Xiaofei, Director of the Propaganda Department and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, presided over the press conference.
In order to strengthen the source prevention and control of new pollutants and strengthen the control of new pollutants, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment recently issued the "Opinions on Strengthening Environmental Impact Assessment of New Pollutants Construction Projects in Key Industries" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").
The "Opinions" focus on six major industries including petrochemicals, coatings, textile printing and dyeing, rubber, pesticides, and medicine. The new pollutants that need to be included in the environmental impact assessment work are clarified, mainly referring to the 14 types of key control new pollutants such as antibiotics clearly defined in the "List of Key Control New Pollutants (2023 Edition)", as well as the list of toxic and harmful pollutants, the list of priority control chemicals, and the chemicals in the annex to the Stockholm Convention.
The "Opinions" stipulate that new renovation and expansion projects that produce or use key control lists of new pollutants and new pollutants expressly prohibited in the Convention must be resolutely refused to be approved. For construction projects involving new pollutants, raw materials, processes and governance measures should be optimized to reduce the generation of new pollutants from the source. For new pollutants with existing emission standards, it is necessary to ensure that emissions meet standards and include them in the management of pollutant discharge permits. For new pollutants with environmental quality standards and corresponding monitoring methods, monitoring, evaluation, prediction of the current status of regional environmental quality should be carried out. Daily monitoring and monitoring should be carried out for new pollutants that do not have environmental quality standards but have monitoring methods.
In the next step, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will urge all localities to strengthen the quality management of environmental impact assessment documents for new pollutants construction projects, and seriously deal with those who fail to carry out environmental impact assessment work as required in accordance with relevant regulations.
