From the chart, we can see that as the country’s GDP rises, the volume of wastewater discharge increases as well. This suggests that to achieve a rise in GDP, the environment has to be sacrificed. The reason for this is that wastewater treatment techniques and facilities have fallen far behind from the growth of industrial production and city construction. Official data shows that more than 4.4 billion tons of untreated or partially treated wastewater is dumped into the river annually, and this has incurred an economic loss of 7 billion yuan.
Oil Spill
Chemical discharge
Eutrophication
Contamination
All of these have resulted in more than a third of China’s rivers and 90% of its urban water supplies to be heavily polluted. A famous example would be the Pearl River Delta contamination in Guangdong province. The delta was previously known as “String of Pearls” but the contamination was so bad that it is now known as the Poisoned Pearl.
There are 2 main causes of water pollution in China, namely pulp and paper production and manufacturing.
The paper industry is one of the most fatal industries as it has the highest chemical oxygen demand and contributes most to China’s organic water pollution problem. However, paper industry is one of the important economic drivers industries in China, as shown in this chart.
The index of 1.21 here means that for a 1 unit increase in the end product output, the impact on the Chinese national economy is 1.21.
The paper industry generates an annual output value of approximately 600 billion yuan and tax contribution of 50 billion yuan. Being a lucrative industry, China's paper industry is poised for further strategic growth this year under the ongoing framework of China's 12th Five-Year Plan. Therefore, it is hard for the Chinese government to