Pesticide Industry Faces Grim Discharge Situations    

The chemical industry is not only a pillar industry of China's national economy but also an important supplier of energy and raw materials. It is also an industry with high energy consumption and hard-to-overcome pollution.
   At present there is no practical technology in China to treat many pollutants discharged by the dyestuffs, pesticides, fine chemicals and other chemical sectors. In the production of pesticide active ingredients (pesticides technical) such as insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, COD concentration in discharged wastewater is as high as several thousand to tens of thousands of milligrams /liter.
    During the Eleventh Five-Year Program period (2006-2010), the main goals for Chinese pesticide industry to reduce discharges and lower consumption are:
    1. Eliminate a group of pesticide varieties with high toxicity and high residue and develop pesticide varieties with high potency, security, economic feasibility and good environmental compatibility. The output of those with high toxicity and high residue should be less than 10% of overall pesticide output.
    2. Complete the plan to develop alternatives for solvent emulsion oil. Except for around 5% of the pesticide active ingredients output for technical reasons, all other emulsion oil based pesticides will be replaced by non emulsion oil types.
    3. Improve the utilization rate of raw materials. The recycling and utilization rate for raw materials and auxiliary materials in the production of pesticide active ingredients shall reach more than 80%. The output/input ratio in the course of pesticide production shall increase from the current average 1:8 to below 1:5.
    4. Two or three pesticide industrial parks will be established nationwide with production enterprises centralized, resource allocation optimized, low cost of comprehensive management of environmental impacts. The number of pesticide active ingredients producers will be reduced from more than 500 today down to around 300.
    5. Strengthen the control and supervision on the discharges of pesticide enterprises. The discharge from all pesticide enterprises must reach standards.
    6. The recovery rate for pesticide packaging will reach over 30%.  
    Significant effects from energy saving and pollutant reduction were gained in the pesticide industry in 2007. One of the biggest successes was to reduce the use of benzene, toluene and xylene and emulsion oil preparations, which not only waste resources but also pollute the environment. Water-based preparations with high potency and environmental friendliness were promoted widely. The ban of pesticides with high toxicity such as methamidophos can reduce 200 000 tons of emulsion oil to spread in farmland while saving 100 000 to 120 000 tons of benzene, toluene and xylene, with significant environmental and economic effectiveness. However, the follow-up work is still very difficult to carry out.