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Greenpeace worker taking samples alongside a BASF factory near Shanghai.
Our water pollution campaign has four main goals:
• To stop industries in China from using and discharging the most hazardous chemicals (Zero Toxic Discharge).
• For China to commit to a zero toxic discharge goal with intermediate targets and to track progress.
• For China to draw up a priority list of the most hazardous chemicals so that it can track their use and eventually phase them out.
• To make a wide sector of industry begin publishing a comprehensive report of their environmental data—especially the use of chemicals—and make that report publicly accessible, preferably on the web.
How are we doing this?
• We monitor industrial pollution in China by sampling water coming from polluting factories, talking to the victims of water pollution and compiling evidence of environmental degradation from industrial pollution.
• We expose the dirtiest corporate polluters and demand that they stop using the most hazardous chemicals.
• We engage with key government officials to recommend the best policies and practices in curbing industrial water pollution including Environmental Information Disclosure.
• We raise public concern about water pollution and urge the public to push local authorities to take more action to stop industrial pollution.
The Three Clean Rivers project
| More than half of China's industrial pollution comes from paper, chemicals, power and textiles. |
Launched in 2009, we will be documenting industrial pollution along these rivers, sampling effluent and talking to victims of water pollution to get a better understanding of how serious industrial water pollution is.
We will also target the most polluting industries in the Pearl River Delta. Many of those factories are Hong Kong-owned—there are an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 factories belonging to Hong Kong companies in the region.
The Environmental Information Disclosure (EID) project
Greenpeace China believes that making sure companies release their environmental data is a key step for reducing industrial pollution.
Experience in other parts of the world have shown that many companies end up using less hazardous chemicals if they have to make their pollution data public.
Public environmental data also empowers the people who live near polluting factories to push for change.
