Jiangsu establishes a safety and environmental protection linkage mechanism for hazardous waste and environmental governance facilities.

"It is recommended that you install and use 'activated carbon adsorption + catalytic incineration device' to achieve the management goal of 90% collection and disposal rates for waste gas. However, the related waste gas treatment enhancement project should obtain approval from the emergency management bureau." Recently, staff from the Ecological Environment Bureau of Zhonglou District, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, provided environmental protection suggestions and safety reminders after understanding the relevant needs of Jiangsu Jiali Decoration Materials Co., Ltd.

"Design, demonstration, review, acceptance, the Ecological Environment Bureau and the Emergency Management Bureau of Zhonglou District, Changzhou City, work together, intervening in advance, providing advice from environmental protection and safety perspectives, allowing enterprises to truly benefit." The person in charge of Jiangsu Jiali Decoration Materials Co., Ltd. stated that the enterprise encounters "troubles" and "walls" during its development, sometimes accompanied by safety hazards, the biggest reason being a lack of understanding of policies. In this process of enhancing waste gas treatment, the proactive actions of ecological environment and emergency management departments not only help enterprises "save trouble" but also assist in "seeking development."

It is reported that to further strengthen the connection between ecological environment protection and safety production supervision systems, effectively prevent production safety accidents, and continuously improve the ecological environment, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment and the Provincial Emergency Management Department jointly issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Coordination Work between Ecological Environment and Emergency Management Departments" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), exploring the establishment of a safety and environmental protection coordination mechanism for hazardous waste such as abandoned hazardous chemicals and environmental governance facilities, ensuring seamless connection of the "chain" of safety responsibilities and forming a cohesive regulatory force.

Six categories of environmental governance facilities are included in the safety supervision scope.

The issuance of the "Opinions" will lay a good foundation for grassroots work, thus changing the previous situation of infrequent coordination between ecological environment and emergency management departments." Yin Kun, a relevant person in charge of the Safety Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, stated that the cooperation between the two parties will gradually clarify the blurred boundaries of safety and environmental protection, taking a step forward together to achieve the original intention of fully protecting the safety of people's lives and property and ecological environment.

Reporters noted that in establishing a regulatory coordination mechanism for environmental governance facilities, the "Opinions" clearly state that during the environmental impact assessment approval process for six types of environmental governance facilities, including desulfurization and denitrification, coal-to-gas conversion, volatile organic compound recovery, sewage treatment, dust control, and RTO incinerators, ecological environment departments must urge enterprises to conduct safety risk identification and promptly inform emergency management departments of approved environmental governance facility projects. This means that ecological environment departments must check whether the approval procedures are complete and whether relevant analyses are made during the environmental impact assessment process.

For emergency management departments, the above six types of environmental governance facilities will also be included in the safety supervision scope during daily supervision, ensuring "more eyes on the situation," and verifying safety hazard clues discovered and transferred by ecological environment departments, urging enterprises to rectify and eliminate safety hazards.

The model of collaboration and clue sharing between ecological environment departments and emergency management departments effectively expands the breadth of hazard investigation and governance.

It is reported that the ecological environment and emergency management departments in Kunshan have long established a coordination mechanism. In daily regulatory enforcement, when issues involving the regulatory authority of the other party are discovered, they promptly transfer relevant clues to the other party for verification through written notifications and other means, and conduct joint inspections or special rectifications when necessary. Data shows that in 2019, regarding potential safety production hazards discovered in daily environmental supervision, the Kunshan ecological environment department sent 13 letters to the municipal emergency management department. Generally, both departments can verify the environmental and safety issues mentioned in the letters within a month and propose relevant disposal requirements according to the law.

"Currently, regarding safety issues of environmental protection facilities for construction projects, the provincial department is steadily advancing the identification of loopholes, gradually forming a closed-loop supervision system." Yin Kun told reporters that there are still some small enterprises that have not completed approval procedures and have built environmental pollution control facilities with safety hazards, falling outside the regulatory vision of functional departments, thus posing safety risks.

Enterprises are the main responsible entities for the construction, operation, maintenance, and dismantling of various environmental governance facilities. Some enterprises believe that as long as there are environmental governance facilities, they can ignore their environmental safety risks. In response to this situation, the "Opinions" clearly state that enterprises must conduct safety risk identification management for six types of environmental governance facilities, including desulfurization and denitrification, coal-to-gas conversion, and volatile organic compound recovery, improve the internal pollution prevention facility's stable operation and management responsibility system, and strictly build environmental governance facilities according to standards and specifications to ensure the safe, stable, and effective operation of environmental governance facilities.

The regulatory scope of hazardous waste achieves comprehensive and multi-faceted coverage.

The work of preventing and controlling hazardous waste pollution is of great significance for improving environmental quality, preventing environmental risks, protecting ecological environment safety, and ensuring the health of the people. Regarding hazardous waste supervision, Jiangsu has achieved a breakthrough from non-existence to existence. Currently, in related work, the responsibilities of the Jiangsu Provincial Ecological Environment Department have been further clarified, expanding from previous environmental supervision to comprehensive and multi-faceted supervision of hazardous waste, such as in collection, storage, and disposal, ensuring that they "look more closely" within their capabilities and leading the execution of special actions for hazardous waste disposal across the province.

For enterprises, the legal representative and actual controller of the enterprise are the primary responsible persons for the entire process of safety and environmental protection management of abandoned hazardous chemicals and other hazardous waste. The "Opinions" require enterprises to earnestly fulfill their environmental protection and safety responsibilities in all aspects of hazardous waste generation, collection, storage, transportation, utilization, and disposal.

The issuance of the "Opinions" will promote the ecological environment and emergency management departments to jointly strengthen safety supervision, truly achieving "you are included in supervision, I will look more closely."

It is worth noting that in establishing a project source approval coordination mechanism, the "Opinions" also clarify that ecological environment and emergency management departments at all levels should establish a coordination mechanism for environmental protection and safety approval of construction projects, mutually informing each other of environmental protection and safety information based on the application and approval status of enterprise construction projects. Especially for construction projects involving hazardous chemicals, joint discussions or approvals can be conducted when necessary to form a regulatory synergy.

Reporters learned from the Ecological Environment Bureau of Lianyungang City that two enterprises in the Huainan Chemical Park recently plan to implement upgrade and transformation projects for governance facilities. When accepting the projects, the Huainan Ecological Environment Bureau clearly required the enterprises to provide safety demonstration materials and sent a letter to the county emergency management bureau for relevant opinions before approval. The emergency management department then replied, requiring enterprises to carry out safety evaluations and design for environmental protection facility construction projects before starting construction. Currently, the relevant enterprises' upgrade and transformation projects for governance facilities have completed safety evaluations and design and other safety management work.

In addition, the "Opinions" also establish mechanisms for joint law enforcement and joint consultations, requiring ecological environment and emergency management departments at all levels to regularly carry out joint law enforcement, conducting at least one joint special law enforcement action for environmental protection and safety each year, researching enterprises included in the "blacklist" management quarterly and implementing joint penalties, and establishing a regular consultation mechanism. For departments and responsible persons with ineffective coordination, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment will report to the Provincial Emergency Management Department.

In terms of the coordination mechanism, various places in Jiangsu, in addition to prescribed actions, also add "optional actions." For example, the Ecological Environment Bureau of Taizhou City actively connects with the Municipal Emergency Management Bureau while contacting the Municipal Administrative Approval Department to negotiate the establishment of a three-department coordination work mechanism, and is formulating relevant coordination work systems. The Ecological Environment Department of Wujiang District, Suzhou City, issued the "Implementation Plan for Special Rectification of Environmental Pollution Prevention and Control Facilities in Wujiang District," requiring enterprises to fill out the "Self-Inspection Form for Enterprises in Special Rectification of Environmental Pollution Prevention and Control Facilities," sorting out the safety risks and hidden dangers of RTO facilities, and notifying relevant districts, towns, and emergency management bureaus of the missing safety assessments and safety "three simultaneous" acceptance of RTO facilities, jointly urging enterprises to fulfill their main responsibilities.