China's Minister of Environmental Protection Chen Jining caught factories in Beijing's Fangshan district by surprise on Tuesday, as he carried out unannounced anti-pollution spot checks.
Chen and a team of officials from the ministry paid a visit to several major factories, carrying out site inspections to verify whether emergency response measures for heavy pollution in the Beijing suburb were being implemented.
Chen and his team arrived at Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Company and conducted an inspection of its rubber workshop. Chen learned more about the production facilities, and looked to catch workers off guard with questions such as "how does your off-gas treatment system work? How often do you change the materials?"
The workshop is equipped with three sets of a system that treats volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals released during manufacturing that can be toxic. However, because of defects within the process of treating and removing the VOCs, many substances become volatile and cause secondary pollution.
The company has modified one of the three systems, but a chemical odor around the system still remained when Chen made his unannounced visit.
Chen urged the company to attach more importance to environmental protection, especially the issue of treating VOCs.
Chen and the inspection team then moved on to Wugudaochang Food Company and a thermal engineering project under the construction of Beijing No.2 Construction Engineering Co., Ltd. It found the project has continued operations despite being required to suspend work as a response to the current heavy pollution orange alert.
The leader of construction on the project said they had not received any notice. Chen once again underlined the importance of reacting instantly to heavy pollution alerts.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection has set up seven reserve inspection teams, which will continue to carry out special inspections in the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as the Hebei Province cities of Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Baoding, Langfang, Xingtai and Handan. The seven Hebei cities were among China's top 10 most polluted cities in 2014, according to China Daily.
