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Clean soil ‘should be top priority’
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DECONTAMINATING soil at former industrial sites should be as high a priority as tackling air pollution, said the head of Shanghai’s environment watchdog yesterday, urging the government to enact a law requiring that properties meet safety standards before new developments are permitted to go ahead.
“Soil pollution is as urgent a problem as air and water pollution,” Zhang Quan, director of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, told Shanghai Daily. “It is also no easier to treat soil than it is to treat air and water.”
The city needs to build on what it learned from the rehabilitation of a local steel foundry site (No.3 plant of Baosteel Group) that was contaminated with heavy metals to accommodate the eco-friendly Shanghai World Expo 2010, he said.
“Soil contamination affects people’s health in two ways: contamination of agricultural products and exposure to toxic substances as a result of contact,” Zhang said.
The authority will initially focus on lands in the Taopu area in Putuo District and the Nanda area in Baoshan District, former industrial areas that are now being turned into innovative parks, commercial strips and residential neighborhoods.
Sixteen percent of China’s overall land base and 20 percent of its agricultural lands are polluted, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Shanghai itself is home to at least 10,000 polluted pieces of former industrial land, according to the government.
Fortunately, the city’s soil-treatment capabilities have improved significantly since Expo 2010.
Tongji University, for example, has developed a substance that can absorb heavy metals, and East China University of Science and Technology has come up with a method for removing organic pollutants using a mixture of microorganisms, activated carbon and chemicals.
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