BEIJING - Centralised waste treatment facilities that treat textile printing and dyeing wastewater in China are severely overloaded in a situation which is leading to the "centralised discharge of pollution to the environment" according to a new report from the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE). The NGO has expressed concern that proposals to relax the 'indirect' discharge standard in China – which applies to individual facilities discharging wastewater to centralised treatment facilities - will place even more pressure on these facilities. "The question that must be raised here is whether discharges at these [proposed new] high levels can be effectively treated by centralised wastewater systems, which are often themselves already beyond their capacity to treat influent from various factories. The problem of pollution discharges from textile mills can best be solved looking at both the industrial dischargers and the centralized treatment plant at the same," says the report.
