Problem overview:
Awareness and visions:
Often, areas experiencing the worst pollution are the first to take pollution abatement seriously. In this example, a major Chinese industrial city undergoes a complete reformation.
Policies and measures:
By integrating environmental management and economic development, various pollution control measures have been implemented in a more sustainable nature, for instance, a shift from end-of-pipe control to a more sustainable head-of-pipe prevention.
Background in summary:
Benxi was so heavily polluted that it was invisible from the satellite:
Benxi city is an industrial raw material base province producing mainly iron and steel, coal, building materials and chemical products. As a result of such development, the city was once labeled "a city invisible from the satellite".
The city implemented a seven-year pollution control plant:
With increasingly worse environmental situation, Benxi began to explore a coordinated development of economy and environment by taking urban environmental control as the starting point. From 1989 the city began to implement Seven - Year Plan for Environmental Pollution Control.
Pollution was brought under control:
Around RMB 400 million were invested to pollution control in the city and the major pollution sources were equipped with environmental facilities in the main thus the urban environmental pollution was brought under efficient control.
The Benxi Agenda 21 has been proposed for sustainable development:
In early 1994, in accordance with China's Agenda 21, Benxi adopted Benxi's Agenda 21 and proposed a project entitled Sustainable Development through Industrial Transformation and Cleaner Production. The coordinated development of economy and environment began to shift from source control to integrated management, from end - of - pipe control to head - of - pipe prevention, and from pollution control to sustainable development.
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Good practice rating:
(1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score) |
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Sustainability
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Efficiency
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| 1 |
 Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other. |
3 |
Cost efficient. |
| 1 |
Sustainable over time (not one-off) |
Process |
| Adaptability |
- |
Participation of the community |
| 3 |
Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?) |
2 |
Participation of resource owners/users |
| 2 |
Socio-cultural adaptability. |
2 |
Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private) |
| 2 |
Level of development adaptability. |
1 |
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments. |
| 3 |
Style of government adaptability. |
- |
Ability to attract political interest/support |
| 2 |
Degree of decentralization adaptability. |
- |
Procedures for feedback and review. |
Comments on this example:
In very simple explanation, the difference between pollution control and pollution prevention is
- Pollution control allows a certain amount of pollution to be emitted that will not exceed the sustainable rate. However, pollution once emitted could not disappear fast enough and starts to accumulate in the environment. Therefore, after a number of years time, the environment could no longer tolerate the level of pollution and will start degrading. At that point, society will have to come in and spend millions of dollars on cleaning up the environment.
- Pollution prevention allows zero pollution to be emitted because any type of pollution will be eliminated during the production process. Hence, no accumulated pollution and no cleaning up process.
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Sustainability of the project:
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Awareness and visions:
The city of Benxi took serious action in pollution mitigation and improvement of the environmental condition. That is because the pollution level has reached a limit where the city people could no longer tolerate. If the environmental condition hadnt been so physically terrible, the city might have not taken the initiative to solve the problem because the level of pollution was still bearable.
Improvement in either the environment or economic condition with no harm to the other:
The city of Benxi is a good example of how environmental management does not affect economic development, on the contrary, it would improve economic development in the long-run, because money will be saved on cleaning up the environment.
Sustainable over time (not one-off):
Sustainable over time (not one-off): Pollution prevention is very sustainable in the long-run, because the city could be sure that no pollution will be released from production since it will be eliminated within the production process.
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Adaptability of the project to other situations:
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This is a useful example where planned action was initiated to control pollution. Cities with heavy industry can certainly benefit from Benxi's example. Replication in other areas requires total commitment on the part of all concerned parties. However, can most developing countries afford that kind of investment. The role of the private sector in this process is not clear.
| Process of decision making and implementation: |
Policies and measures:
The city of Benxi now sees the importance of adopting pollution management techniques instead of pollution control techniques because it is more sustainable and inexpensive in the long run. Hopefully, other countries would see the necessity for such pollution management before over limiting the capacity of the environment.
The city of Benxi has invested nearly RMB 400 million (US$ 50 million) into the environmental pollution control programme, in which resulted in remarkable decrease in pollution level and improvement in environmental conditions. However, to emphasize again, RMB 400 million is a significant amount of me for such programme and although other cities do experience the same pollution problems and are equally irritated by it, would they be able to afford this kind of investment?
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Documentation: |
Literature or other written project review references
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Source of Information: |
Office of Leading Group for Benxi Agenda 21
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Contacts: |
Tang Guimei
Tel: 0086-414-3851115
Fax: 0086-414-3851115
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Submitted by: |
Mr. Chen Yuxiang
Deputy Director
The Administrative Centre for China's Agenda 21
Beijing, China
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