New pollutants have diverse sources, involve numerous industries, have long industrial chains, and pose significant challenges in terms of R&D for treatment technologies, requiring cross-departmental and cross-field collaborative governance. China's new pollutant control efforts are still in their initial stages, and there are shortcomings such as a weak foundation, insufficient resource allocation, and severely inadequate governance capabilities.
Recently, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Minister Huang Runqiu of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment stated that, in the next step, The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will, together with relevant departments, strengthen technological support, making new pollutant control a key area of national basic research and technological innovation, and focusing on breakthroughs in key core technologies.
It is understood that new pollutants generally refer to chemical substances with environmental persistence, bioaccumulation, and biotoxicity. The environmental and health risks of these substances are relatively hidden; even at low doses in the environment, they may pose risks and hazards to people's health, environmental health, and environmental safety. In May 2022, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Action Plan for the Governance of New Pollutants," systematically arranging and deploying the governance of new pollutants.
Huang Runqiu introduced that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with relevant departments, has comprehensively promoted the implementation of new pollutant control work, achieving positive results.
First, taking stock. We screened more than 4,000 chemical substances with high hazards and high environmental detection rates, conducted a preliminary survey of their production and use, and gradually grasped their distribution.
Second, assessing environmental risks. Chemical substances that have been banned or restricted internationally but are still produced in China will be prioritized for inclusion in the assessment plan, and their full life-cycle environmental risk assessment will be conducted.
Third, safeguarding the risk bottom line. Together with relevant departments, we issued the "List of Key Controlled New Pollutants (2023 Edition)", implementing control measures such as prohibition, restriction, and emission limits on 14 new pollutants with prominent environmental risks.
For example, short-chain chlorinated paraffins used in the production of student backpacks, plastic running tracks, and children's toys will be eliminated by the end of this year. This year, two major categories of perfluoroalkyl substances of international concern will also be eliminated, and the use of perfluorooctanoic acid will be restricted, prohibiting their use in waterproof and oil-proof clothing, baking paper, gastroscopes, etc.
Fourth, strengthening supervision and law enforcement. Joint law enforcement inspections were carried out with market supervision departments, and last year 15 illegal production cases of persistent organic pollutants used in building insulation materials were investigated and dealt with.
Fifth, strengthening guidance and support Currently, 31 provinces and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have issued provincial-level action plans for the governance of new pollutants.
Huang Runqiu mentioned that, in the next step, The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with relevant departments, will, on the one hand, strengthen technological support, making new pollutant control a key area of national basic research and technological innovation, and focusing on breakthroughs in key core technologies.
On the other hand, effectively preventing environmental and health risks from new pollutants, following the concept of full life-cycle environmental risk management, strengthening the modernization of the new pollutant governance system and capabilities, and maximizing efforts to ensure ecological and environmental safety and the health of the people.
What exactly are new pollutants?
Currently, there is no authoritative definition of new pollutants internationally or domestically.
From the perspective of environmental management, new pollutants generally refer to pollutants that have recently been discovered or brought to attention, pose risks to the ecological environment or human health, have not yet been included in management, or whose risks cannot be effectively controlled by existing management measures.
According to the "Action Plan for the Governance of New Pollutants," new pollutants of widespread international and domestic concern mainly include persistent organic pollutants, endocrine disruptors, and antibiotics controlled by international conventions.
The main sources of new pollutants are the production and use of toxic and harmful chemicals.
Compared with "conventional pollutants" with a relatively complete management system, "new pollutants" mainly refer to substances that are not yet regulated by laws, regulations, and standards, or for which regulations are incomplete.
Currently, the main new pollutants of international concern include: endocrine disruptors (EDCs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), perfluoroalkyl substances (PFCs), brominated flame retardants (BFRs), drinking water disinfection byproducts, antibiotics, and microplastics.
In daily life, these substances are not unfamiliar to us:
Typical substances of endocrine disruptors include : phthalates, bisphenol A, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, etc.
Typical substances of antibiotics include : macrolides, tetracyclines, quinolones, sulfonamides, chloramphenicol, etc.
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) : are very common in medicine cabinets, girls' makeup sets, and bathrooms, including more than 5,000 substances such as drugs, diagnostic agents, musk, and opacifiers.
Perfluoroalkyl substances : representative products include perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and perfluorooctanoic acid, widely used in textiles, coatings, leather, synthetic detergents, cookware manufacturing, and paper food packaging materials.
Microplastics : Microplastics refer to plastic fragments and particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter. Some microbeads in toothpaste, bath scrubs, and sunscreens contain microplastics. Non-degradable plastics discarded into the natural environment, after a long time of degradation and fragmentation, produce "ubiquitous" microplastics.
Characteristics of new pollutants
New pollutants have five main characteristics: serious harm, hidden risks, environmental persistence, widespread sources, and complex governance.
In addition, new pollutants also have characteristics such as "non-degradability, difficulty in emission reduction and substitution, and involvement in multiple and wide-ranging fields."
Serious harm : New pollutants have various biotoxicities, manifested in organ toxicity, neurotoxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, immunotoxicity, endocrine-disrupting effects, and genotoxicity.
Despite this, we should fully recognize their harmfulness, but we don't need to be overly panicked.
Hidden risks The short-term harm of most new pollutants is not obvious. They may have existed in the environment or been used for many years without being considered harmful substances, but their harmfulness is discovered only after they have entered the environmental media through various pathways.
Taking antibiotics as an example, low concentrations of antibiotics that have long existed in environmental media such as river water and soil, as well as in the human body, can lead to drug resistance in some microorganisms. These microorganisms may spread in the environment through respiration, food, drinking water, excretion, agricultural irrigation, etc., thus threatening human health.
环 境持久性 Refers to substances that have a long half-life in the environment, can accumulate through the food web, and have adverse effects on human health and the environment.
Scientific criteria should be established to determine whether a substance is a POPs. The criteria recommended by ICCA (International Council of Chemical Associations) include:
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Persistence criterion: Judged by half-life (t1/2), 180d in water bodies, and 360d in sediments and soil;
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Bioaccumulation criterion: Judged by bioconcentration factor, BCF>5000;
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Criteria for long-range migration and return to Earth: Half-life 2d (in air) and vapor pressure between 0.01 and 1 kpa;
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Criterion for determining the presence of a substance in remote, low-concentration areas: The mass concentration of the substance in water bodies is greater than 10 ng/L.
Wide range of sources: New pollutants are diverse and involve a wide range of industries, including industrial production, daily consumption, military fire fighting, and many other fields, as well as numerous industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture, aquaculture, textiles, construction, plastics processing, automobiles, aerospace, electronics and electricity, fire foam, and garbage incineration.
Complexity of governance For new pollutants with persistence and bioaccumulation, even low-dose emissions into the environment can harm the environment, organisms, and human health, requiring high levels of governance.
New pollutants involve numerous industries and long industrial chains. The research and development of substitutes and alternative technologies is difficult, requiring multi-departmental and cross-field collaborative governance and implementation of full life-cycle environmental risk management.
Dynamically carrying out "screening-evaluation-control" of new pollutants
In June this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Announcement on Environmental Risk Control Requirements for 5 Types of Persistent Organic Pollutants such as Polychlorinated Naphthalenes", which made provisions for the elimination or restriction of 5 types of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
To date, China has completely eliminated 23 types of persistent organic pollutants controlled by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and the emission intensity of dioxins in major industries nationwide has significantly decreased. China's governance of new pollutants has entered the "fast lane".
New pollutants emitted into the environment have characteristics such as biotoxicity, environmental persistence, and bioaccumulation, posing significant risks to the ecological environment or human health, but they have not yet been included in management or existing management measures are insufficient to effectively control their risks. These are toxic and harmful chemical substances.
It is understood that most new pollutants have various biotoxicities, including organ toxicity, neurotoxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, immunotoxicity, endocrine disruption effects, carcinogenicity, and teratogenicity. At the same time, new pollutants can migrate long distances with air and water flow, and after enrichment through the food chain, they accumulate in organisms for a long time.
Liu Guozheng, director of the Center for Solid Waste and Chemical Management Technology of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that unlike conventional pollution control, the complexity of new pollutant governance lies in the wide variety, wide range of sources, and hidden environmental risks of toxic and harmful chemical substances. When determining the control measures for each new pollutant, it is necessary to closely combine the specificity of environmental risks and find targeted environmental management countermeasures.
In May 2022, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Action Plan for the Governance of New Pollutants" (Guo Ban Fa [2022] No. 15), which made comprehensive arrangements for the governance of new pollutants and clarified the overall approach to the governance of new pollutants in China.
The Action Plan takes effective prevention of environmental and health risks from new pollutants as its core, adheres to the working principles of precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and law-based pollution control, follows the concept of full life-cycle environmental risk management, comprehensively promotes the environmental risk management of new pollutants, and implements investigation and assessment, classified governance, and full-process environmental risk control.
The plan proposes to build a "screening, evaluation, and control" system for environmental risk management of toxic and harmful chemical substances, as well as a full-process control system of "prohibition, reduction, and treatment".
That is: through conducting environmental risk screening and assessment of chemical substances, accurately screening and evaluating new pollutants that need key control, scientifically formulating and legally implementing full-process environmental risk control measures, including prohibition and restriction at the source of production and use, process reduction, and end-of-pipe treatment.
(1) Conduct investigations and monitoring to assess the environmental risk status of new pollutants.
(2) Strictly control the source to prevent the generation of new pollutants.
(3) Strengthen process control to reduce the emission of new pollutants.
(4) Deepen end-of-pipe treatment to reduce the environmental risks of new pollutants.
The "screening-evaluation-control" tiered identification and classified management system for new pollutant governance refers to the relevant units conducting investigations and monitoring, screening out new pollutants with higher environmental risks, scientifically assessing their environmental risks, and then implementing full-process environmental risk control measures for source prohibition and restriction, process reduction, and end-of-pipe treatment. Liu Guozheng said that since people's understanding of the harm of new pollutants is a continuous process, the screening of new pollutants and environmental risk assessment need to be continuously promoted.
Green substitutes contribute to the governance of new pollutants
Over the years, China has vigorously researched and developed green substitutes and alternative technologies for new pollutants, effectively supporting the work of new pollutant governance.
Taking hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) as an example, HBCD is a polybrominated white solid substance that can be added as a flame retardant to other materials. Studies have found that HBCD itself is toxic and easily enters the body. The large-scale and long-term accumulation of HBCD may also increase the risk of cancer.
After repeated research and experimental verification by experts, it has been found that methyl octabromodiphenyl ether and brominated SBS (brominated styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer) can effectively replace HBCD, and they have industrial production conditions and low environmental risks. Enterprises that originally used HBCD to produce insulation boards only need to slightly adjust the process parameters to use alternative products for production, and the product quality meets national requirements. Currently, the production capacity of these two alternative products is continuously expanding, with strong sales. This is according to Liu Qiang, director of the Shandong Provincial Center for Solid Waste and Hazardous Chemical Pollution Control.
Establishing a Scientific and Technological Support System for the Governance of New Pollutants
According to incomplete statistics, after the release of the "Action Plan for the Governance of New Pollutants", about 30 regions across China have issued local work plans for the governance of new pollutants. The work on the governance of new pollutants is accelerating nationwide.
However, it is undeniable that China's governance of new pollutants is still in its infancy, facing difficulties such as high governance difficulty, high technical complexity, and insufficient scientific understanding.
“In the face of new challenges and new prevention and control needs, we should focus on effectively preventing environmental and health risks from new pollutants, aiming to build a risk assessment and control technology system for new pollutants, establish a sound risk assessment methodology, and identify key risk sources, and carry out a series of basic theoretical research and key technological development.” Academician Hou Lian emphasized that we should vigorously develop efficient and sensitive detection technologies for new pollutants, achieve the identification of new pollutants, conduct research on the list of key controlled new pollutants, conduct research on the biotoxicity and health risk assessment system of new pollutants, develop green and efficient practical removal technologies for new pollutants, and develop and build an intelligent water network supported by big data technology and covering the transformation and migration system of new pollutants.
Academician Jiang Guibin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Eco-Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that in the face of more complex environmental problems of new pollutants, China needs to establish a relatively complete scientific and technological innovation mechanism to promote the research and development and application of new pollutant governance technologies, improve the effectiveness of new pollutant governance, and ensure the continuous improvement of the ecological environment. For example, developing green alternatives through technologies such as blockchain and deep learning; developing toxicity testing and prioritization screening systems for new pollutants by combining artificial intelligence and automation technologies.
