Environmental watchdog to tighten supervision

By Zheng Xin (China Daily) Updated: 2014-04-10 07:20

The country's environmental watchdog has vowed to tighten its supervision of polluting enterprises nationwide to further improve air quality.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection fined more than 1,800 industrial enterprises for unlawful conduct during an inspection campaign from November to February.

Warnings and fines were issued to 2,185 construction sites with excess dust pollution, 1,848 underground oil refining workshops and coking plants, and 14,122 restaurants without oil fume purification facilities during the investigation.

A total of 29 polluting enterprises have been suspended or shut down, and 169 have been fixed or are being rectified.

The ministry said it will use new technology to carry out environmental supervision, including unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite remote sensors.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are capable of identifying how enterprises discharge pollutants, said Zou Shoumin, head of the environmental inspection office of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, during a news conference on Wednesday.