Polluters beginning to feel the pinch

TWO EMPLOYEES of Shandong Lyujie Green Technology Co in Jinan, East China's Shandong province, have been detained for locking environmental protection inspectors inside a boiler plant affiliated to the company for more than an hour on Sunday. Thepaper.cn commented on Tuesday:

The Jinan public security authorities said the plant has been shut down and the obsolete boiler incapable of reducing its emissions removed. But that outcome has not been easily achieved, even as the Ministry of Environmental Protection ramps up its inspection efforts, which often involve dispatching special teams to pollution-plagued areas and shutting down heavy polluters.

The inspectors who were locked in the plant were taking part in the first of 25 rounds of inspections headed by the ministry, which has sent teams to 28 major cities, including Beijing and Tianjin, and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and Henan.