Good Idea! Chinese Gov Proposes Limits On Toxic Metals In Cropland

[hatrack]

The standards, which have been released so the public can comment, would add more chemicals to the list of those monitored and put stricter requirement on pollutant levels, especially for farmland.

Land pollution has become one of the public's top concerns, but plans to update national soil quality standards have run into obstacles. The current standards base the maximum levels of major kinds of pollutants on the land's designated purpose and include a mechanism for monitoring pollution.

Environmental experts have long complained that the standards, which took effect in 1996, are outdated. A land pollution survey, released in April 2014 after eight years work, indicated that 16.1 percent of the country's land contains excessive levels of pollutants. Nearly one-fifth of tested farmland was found to be heavily polluted.

Calls for stricter standards have risen, but several environmental experts said that despite the fact a draft has been published, government agencies and academics are still debating details and no timetable has been set for the new standards to take effect.

EDIT

http://english.caixin.com/2015-01-27/100778811.html

[DetlefK]

1. Just for comparison: I heard of a case in Germany where a company mixed toxic plastic in fertilizer.

It was found out too late. Now they are building a barrier in that community to keep the groundwater from the field from mixing with the municipal groundwater.
Another solution would be to simply remove the soil up to a depth of several feet from an area of several dozen square-kilometers in size. Oh, and put those thousand tons of toxic soil in a special dump.




Now upscale that to a case where tens of thousands of square-kilometers are no longer considered safe for agricultural use.

And:
"For instance, China has 20 main types of soil that contain very different levels of cadmium, making it difficult to judge the pollution level of the metal under one standard, Zhao said. He suggested a ladder design for standards to be applied in different regions."

To me, toxic is toxic. I don't care if it's industrial toxic or natural toxic.

[djean111]

2. And yet - we buy all kinds of food from China, and are supposed to trust that it is okay.

The TTP has restrictions against labeling foods to show country of origin, by the way. No, China is not a signatory, but other countries that, say, raise shrimp in filthy conditions and then bleach them before sending them here for us to eat - those shrimp will not be labeled because we might not want to buy them if we knew where they came from.

Yeah, the TPP is a wondrous thing - but not for American consumers. Of anything.