Hebei restricts severely steel industry pollution

Shijiazhuang (CNS) -- Hebei, a northern province that churns out one-fourth of the China's steel and more than one-tenth of the world's total, is set to enforce the country's tightest ever environmental restrictions on its steel companies. The time has come for their "green" transformation, said Yang Zhiming, deputy director and spokesman of the provincial environmental protection department, during a press conference on Tuesday.

Despite justifiable pride in their output capacity, most provincial steel companies are big energy consumers and polluters, and the quality of their products is not sufficient to make them truly competitive.

Restrictions will bring the volume of discharged particulate matter down to less than half the existing national average in existing firms, and to less than 20 percent in newly-opened operations.

Meanwhile, the amount of sulfur dioxide spewed out is expected to shrink by about 60 percent at existing mills, and nearly 90 percent at new ones.

Economized coal resources can spare about 10.60 million yuan (about US$ 1.68 million) of the budget, compared to traditional methods, added Yang.