Abstract
BackgroundChina’s industrial wastewater pollution control policy urgently needs to change from government enforcement to market economy incentive, especially in regions with mature market economic conditions and improved legislative basis like Yangtze River Delta. The economic principles of Water Emissions Trading policy are to achieve a win–win situation in which pollution could be controlled meanwhile abatement costs are minimized. Existing regulations lack rules and restrictions for cross-industrial wastewater emission trading, nevertheless not all wastewater from various industrial sectors are suitable for emissions trading with each other. This study attempted to determine tradable levels of wastewater emissions rights within the selected 10 industries based on the similarity of wastewater composition.ResultsThe result is presented in a tradable level matrix. It shows that of all industrial wastewater, the most suitable for emissions trading are, respectively, Textile and Paper Production, Manufacture of General Purpose Machinery and Manufacture of Transport, and then Chemistry Production and Pharmaceuticals.ConclusionGenerally, this paper provides a systematic calculation method according to the similarity analysis to formulate cross-industrial wastewater emissions trading for policy reference. At the end of the article, a rationality analysis of the domestic wastewater emissions trading pilot programs was made. Even though the current wastewater emissions trading situation is not up to expectations, individual enterprises actively achieved emission reductions to play as the supply sides in the wastewater emissions trading under economic incentive from such a policy.
Highlights
China’s industrial wastewater pollution control policy urgently needs to change from government enforcement to market economy incentive, especially in regions with mature market economic conditions and improved legislative basis like Yangtze River Delta
A similarity principle is proposed to analyze the similarity of wastewater compositions in different industries through algorithms
We only consider the tradable level of industrial wastewater with each other, but do not specify which is supply
Summary
China’s industrial wastewater pollution control policy urgently needs to change from government enforcement to market economy incentive, especially in regions with mature market economic conditions and improved legislative basis like Yangtze River Delta. ET encourages industries to be more proactive in controlling pollution for their own interests, with pollution control targets being realizable and pollution control changing from mandatory to market behavior Such incentivizing policy promotes industrial innovation and emissions reduction more effectively than mandatory standards because the latter offers no reward for exceeding basic compliance requirements and, in theory at least, market-based ET systems are significantly more effective than traditional environmental governance policies [6–8]. The rapid development of the emissions trading system in international environmental law and the successful practice in Europe and America countries show that the operation of the emission trading system is feasible for the reduction of pollutants and promoting the improvement of the environment quality [12]. It provides experience and new ideas that can be used for reference in China’s environmental management [13, 14]
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