Heavier penalties will remind firms to meet eco-standards

DYSTAR GROUP, a German company purchased by the domestic company Longshen in 2010, was recently found responsible for discharging 698 tons of waste acid into a canal without proper treatment by Yangzhou Intermediate People's Court. China Youth Daily comments:

According to reports, the court found the average concentration of the waste acid discharged by DyStar was 59 percent, hundreds of times higher than the legal standard. The waste acid has already caused serious pollution and several neighboring tap water plants have had to suspend production.

The company did not start its illegal deeds until a Chinese management took charge. When the chief manager was a German, the company always neutralized its waste acid then sent it to sewage plants for further processing. It was the new Chinese managers who decided to lower the costs and hand over the waste to an unqualified company which then reassigned the project to a third party, leading to the eventual illicit discharge of the waste acid directly into the canal. It seems many of our compatriots have not formed the habit of strictly following legal standards yet.