Off the wire
• Chinese retailer tycoon gets jail time commuted by 11 months  • "Roland Garros in the City" goes to Beijing, Seoul  • Mongolian press delegation visits China  • Chinese vice president meets Bruneian princess  • Roundup: Thai goods flooding Vietnamese market cause mixed feelings  • Eurozone unemployment remains stable at 10.2 pct in April  • Roundup: Philippine president-elect Duterte names Cabinet  • China's women hockey eye at least top six finish in Rio  • EU announces additional 10 mln euros to help displaced Burundians  • Plain packaging pivotal for tobacco products: WHO  
You are here: 　 Home

State Council formulates plan to fight soil pollution

Xinhua, May 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

The State Council, China's Cabinet, announced an action plan to combat soil pollution on Tuesday.

The plan urged relevant departments, including Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Land and Resources and Ministry of Finance, to jointly launch one survey on soil conditions every 10 years.

Related laws should be revised to add contents about soil pollution control, according to the State Council.

The plan also unveiled other requirements, including that the country should realize the target of "zero growth" of the amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on crops by 2020.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources, about 16.1 percent of China's surveyed land is polluted by heavy metals such as cadmium, arsenic, lead and mercury. In addition, 19.4 percent of surveyed arable land had levels of pollution higher than the national standard. Endi