Quarry workers get new jobs in clean-city push
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E-mail China Daily, November 14, 2012
That forced the government to rethink its development model and in a campaign that ended in March, the city shuttered 74 heavily polluting quarries, protecting mountains that provided the stone.
To deal with dust pollution from the remaining 183 quarries, the city built an industrial park with modern pollution-processing facilities.
Forty-nine stone businesses have already moved to the industrial park, according to the city, and 91 others have applied to make the move.
After the quarries closed, the city's economic growth was not as high as before, said Yang Jun, Party secretary of Rizhao.
But the city remains determined to restructure polluting industries to pursue a cleaner environment, Yang, a delegate, said on the sidelines of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
He said the direction of Rizhao's economic expansion was made clear by President Hu Jintao's statement in his report to the congress on Thursday that "the building of an ecological society should be given high priority".
"President Hu said in his report that we should build 'a beautiful China'," Yang said. "We should seek a healthy development model with less environmental destruction."
After closing the businesses, the city sought more sustainable development from green industries such as fruit and tea cultivation.
The government recently announced support policies to encourage environmentally friendly industries.
And the closure of polluting quarries proved effective in environmental protection: the amount of solid pollutants in the upper streams of the city's polluted Honghe River has decreased from the peak level of 4,540 mg/L to the current 30 mg/L, according to a report released in late October by the environment protection bureau.
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