Across China: An industrial city's green transformation

At the effluent tank of a central China steel plant, dozens of black swans swim freely in the waste water.

Once a highly polluting factory, Xinyegang Steel began treating its wastewater in 2009, and has been raising black swans on the treated water for three years. Besides being channeled to the pool, the treated water is reused in the production process. Manager Guo Peifeng sees the swans as "supervisors" of the water treatment.

Xinyegang is in Huangshi City, Hubei Province. The company's success in reducing pollution is just part of a wider campaign to transform the city from a polluted wasteland to a green city where people will be proud to raise their kids.

Rich in iron and copper ore, Huangshi has been a mining city virtually since it was founded, but has suffered from serious pollution since the 1980s when the city grew rapidly.

The problems of pollution coincided with overcapacity in the mining industry so the city government decided to wage a war against pollution while looking for greener routes to prosperity.

According to Xu Chongbin, director of the city environmental protection bureau, the city has closed down 367 polluters and told 460 others to clean up their act since 2013, affecting over 20 billion yuan (3 billion U. S. dollars) of industrial output. As a result, over 99 percent of the city's sewage treatment is up to standard, and for more than 300 days last year, air quality was "excellent" or "fine."

The city's Cihu Lake was once a virtual cesspit of industrial sewage from the dozens of plants on the bank. Now, the plants around the lake have disappeared and the lake has turned into the centerpiece of the city.

Greener industries such as information, equipment, textiles, and food and beverages have been growing steadily in the past few years. Last year, the investment in information, equipment and medicine in Huangshi economic and technological development zone accounted for 75 percent of all investment.

Meanwhile, the city has also been restructuring its traditional sector. Over the past five years, it spent more than 60 billion yuan on industrial technology and such industries as mining and construction materials.

Huaxin Cement is one example of a successful upgrade. Through technology, the company turns urban garbage and industrial waste into fuels and raw material for cement production, transforming itself from a polluter into an environmental protection pioneer.

"The green transformation of Huangshi is a success story, and its experiences could be borrowed by other cities facing similar problems," said Xu Delong, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Endi