China has framed tough new environmental laws for textile units. That means clothing retailers need to choose their textile supply chain partners with much greater care and transparency. The new law will come into effect from January 2015 and allows authorities to jail company executives for up to 15 days if they do not complete environmental impact assessments or ignore warnings to stop pollution.
The news will have ramifications in the textile and clothing sector, where environmental transgressions are still widespread. The Beijing-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) has developed an online map of polluting Chinese enterprises. It says new wastewater discharge regulations introduced into China’s textile sector are being systematically flouted by the country’s dyeing and finishing sector. IPE is also lobbying with the government for a system of PRTR (pollution release and transfer register), which is common in European and western nations.
The Chinese government has had tough environmental laws in place for many years, but local environmental agencies have often lacked the resources and the teeth to enforce this legislation. Decades of rapid economic development and a huge population have left China with serious pollution problems. A report issued in April showed that nearly 60 per cent of monitored areas in China had very poor or relatively poor underground water quality last year.
