The largest bleaching, printing & dyeing industrial park in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province – New Hangzhou Bay District Bleaching, Printing & Dyeing Park closed on the last day of 2014. 39 enterprises in this park have all stopped production, more than 5,000 employees will be re-allocated and the park, which covers a land area of about 80 hectares, will be reopened for emerging strategic industries.

The strong-hand action is said to cost CNY 1.5 billion, about one fifth of local annual revenue. But both enterprises and government calculate the cost in another way by taking economy, environmentprotection and future development into consideration.

The industrial park is located on the saline-alkali soil of a tidal-flat area, which lacks of freshwater. The bleaching, printing & dyeing industrial park makes up 30% of the water consumption, 15% of the energy consumption and 30% of the sewage discharge of the district, while its pre-tax profits cover less than 1.5% of the total. The 39 enterprises in the park discharge 50,000 tons of wastewater every day, while the wastewater disposal capacity is only 30,000 tons/day. Some enterprises even directly discharge wastewater to nearby rivers, causing heavy pollution.

The stricter restrictions on environment protection push local government to take measures for renovating the industrial park and enforcing all enterprises in the park to reach the 67 new environment protection standards.

Source: China Textile Leader Express