{"id":1915,"date":"2016-04-29T18:48:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T02:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/master.k8s.p4.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/aboutus\/1915\/chinas-toxic-school-was-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-our-entire-chemicals-management-system-needs-to-change\/"},"modified":"2019-11-23T03:03:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T11:03:39","slug":"chinas-toxic-school-was-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-our-entire-chemicals-management-system-needs-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/blog\/1915\/chinas-toxic-school-was-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-our-entire-chemicals-management-system-needs-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s \u2018toxic\u2019 school was just the tip of the iceberg: our entire chemicals management system needs to change"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-content\">\n<div><em>A case of sudden mass illness at a middle school in Jiangsu Province threw China\u2019s hazardous chemicals industry into the spotlight last week. However, this wasn\u2019t an isolated incident, but a symptom of China\u2019s widespread and deep-rooted chemicals management problem.<\/em><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-1ae78b6a-6136-67cf-1f7d-1a1edee4f5d7\">China woke up to disturbing headlines on the morning of April 18: nearly 500 children at a middle school in Jiangsu province had<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/chinarealtime\/2016\/04\/18\/nearly-500-students-fall-ill-at-toxic-school-built-near-former-chemical-plants-in-china\/\"> fallen sick<\/a>, with illnesses ranging from bronchitis and eczema, to abnormalities in their blood and thyroid, and in a few chilling cases, leukemia. The cause was highly suspected to be due to the fact that their new school campus was adjacent to the sites of 3 former chemical plants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">China pesticide pollution blamed as hundreds of pupils fall ill <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mkFIBbF5pY\">https:\/\/t.co\/mkFIBbF5pY<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8VS2OIBqhT\">pic.twitter.com\/8VS2OIBqhT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Greenpeace East Asia (@GreenpeaceEAsia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreenpeaceEAsia\/status\/722254775408955394\">April 19, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The news caused an uproar in China and hit headlines overseas. Within 24 hours, the hashtag #pollutedschool racked up tens of millions of views on social media.<\/p>\n<p>The story was shocking, but as details emerged, so did an all too familiar story. The soil and groundwater surrounding Changzhou Foreign Languages School was polluted with a highly toxic cocktail of industrial chemicals. Levels of Chlorobenzene, a toxic solvent that has been linked to liver and kidney problems, measured at close to<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/policies-politics\/article\/1936763\/hundreds-pupils-school-near-toxic-site-east-china-fall\"> 100,000 times<\/a> what is considered safe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A sickening status quo<\/strong><br \/>\nThis is far from an isolated case: 5 days after the Changzhou incident was exposed, a chemical factory in the same province was<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/apr\/22\/another-toxic-school-case-leads-to-closure-of-chinese-chemical-works\"> ordered to shut down<\/a> operations after 20 students fell sick; on the same day, a chemical blaze at a storage facility at the Yangtze River raged for 16 hours. One 26 year old firefighter<a href=\"http:\/\/news.ynet.com\/3.1\/1604\/24\/11222802.html\"> lost his life<\/a> and 15,000 nearby residents, not to mention valuable drinking resources, have been left at risk of potential contamination.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" style=\"display: block; margin: 1em 40px !important 1em 40px !important;\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">China chemical blaze extinguished, but the aftermath could impact thousands <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9OBVCnHaBx\">https:\/\/t.co\/9OBVCnHaBx<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qevxISl5mK\">pic.twitter.com\/qevxISl5mK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Greenpeace East Asia (@GreenpeaceEAsia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreenpeaceEAsia\/status\/724156124891631616\">April 24, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script charset=\"utf-8\" type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>For years, people in China\u2019s densely populated east coast have been living in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/news\/blog\/Tianjin-blast\/blog\/53831\/\"> close quarters<\/a> with polluting industries, especially chemical facilities. We\u2019ve seen the impact that this has had on our<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/news\/blog\/red-alert\/blog\/54935\/\"> air quality,<\/a> but it\u2019s also having a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/press\/releases\/toxics\/2016\/More-than-80-of-shallow-groundwater-wells-in-China-unfit-for-human-use-Greenpeace-reaction\/\"> devastating effect<\/a> on our soil and water supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Following Changzhou, we investigated other potential \u2018toxic\u2019 sites. In Jiangsu alone, we<a href=\"https:\/\/mp.weixin.qq.com\/s?__biz=MjM5NDU2MTQ5NQ==&amp;mid=2650424036&amp;idx=1&amp;sn=59883382c5a5da356b57bc976317c090&amp;scene=1&amp;srcid=0425jJltcoFBTGEz3IOemwCk&amp;pass_ticket=vMvn%2BoYUYj3dkYZ4Nw6pnBmfXl9n7ihxzQWqyMiXSlfb51m5d0aI%2FVzJTcQmvxaB#rd\"> discovered<\/a> 4 other sites that had previously housed chemical factories in close proximity to schools, residential areas and office buildings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prevention is better than cure<\/strong><br \/>\nUnder China\u2019s current chemicals management system, \u2018toxic\u2019 sites like the Changzhou Foreign Languages school are ubiquitous and as China\u2019s chemical industry transitions, they are likely to increase.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s chemicals management system needs nothing short of a complete overhaul and the first step is transparency.<\/p>\n<p>China has one of the biggest chemicals industries in the world, but it lacks the stringent regulations seen in other countries like the EU and US.<\/p>\n<p>Policy makers and chemical companies need to adopt the international practice of having a public database to track the release and transfer of chemicals, such as OECD\u2019s PRTR system. Making this information publicly available will not only allow local authorities to make targeted efforts to protect public health from toxic chemicals, \u00a0but in the case of an emergency, the firefighters and emergency responders will know exactly what they\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n<p>It will also provide the public with the right to know if they are living next door to a potentially dangerous toxic chemical storage facility.<\/p>\n<p>What happened at Changzhou Foreign Languages school was an alarm bell, exposing the dangerous gaps in China\u2019s chemicals management system. Introducing transparency into the system can put measures in place to ensure that incidents like Changzhou go from a routine occurrence to a relic of the past.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cheng Qian is a Toxics campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A case of sudden mass illness at a middle school in Jiangsu Province threw China\u2019s hazardous chemicals industry into the spotlight last week. However, this wasn\u2019t an isolated incident, but a symptom of China\u2019s widespread and deep-rooted chemicals management problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"p4-page-type":[26],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-sustainably","tag-detox","p4-page-type-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/2462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}