China’s Jiangsu province issues regulations on soil contamination control

The congress of China’s Jiangsu province on April 6 issued regulations on soil pollution control, which will come into effect on Sept. 1. To protect the public, these regulations will introduce specific requirements for preventing pollution sources from causing soil contamination. These requirements include those for recyclers and designated key industries as described below.

Requirements for recyclers

Article 28 of the regulations requires companies engaged in the recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment, batteries, tires or plastics or the dismantling of end-of-life vehicles or vessels to take measures for soil contamination control and not to use recycling technologies or techniques that the state bans or orders to be eliminated.

Key industries for soil contamination control

The regulations designate 12 industries — including chemical, electroplating, agrochemical, lead-acid battery, steel and hazardous waste utilization and disposal — as key industries for soil contamination control. These industries will be subject to restriction measures for high-contamination zones as well as soil contamination inspection.

In those industries, companies subject to the special pollutant discharge permission management will be added to the list of companies for the special soil contamination control oversight. Article 21 requires companies on this list to monitor the soil and groundwater regularly, report the monitoring data to the department of ecology and environment and make the data public. If these companies fail to conduct monitoring as stipulated by this article, a fine of 200,000 yuan ($31,000) or less will be imposed on them.

The full text of the regulations (in simplified Chinese) is available at
http://www.jsrd.gov.cn/qwfb/sjfg/202204/t20220406_536167.shtml