Pollution in China
overview of pollution in China
Pollution in China is one aspect of the broader topic of environmental issues in China. Various forms of pollution have increased following the industrialisation of China, causing widespread environmental and health problems.
Pollution statistics
Soil
The immense population growth in the People's Republic of China since the 1980s has resulted in increased soil pollution. The State Environmental Protection Administration believes it to be a threat to the environment, food safety and sustainable agriculture. 38,610 square miles (100,000 km2) of China's cultivated land have been polluted, with contaminated water being used to irrigate further 31.5 million acres (21,670 km2.), and another 2 million acres (1,300 km2) have been covered or destroyed by solid waste. The affected area accounts for one-tenth of China's cultivable land. An estimated 6 million tonnes of food grain are contaminated by heavy metals every year, causing direct losses of 29 billion yuan (US$2.57 billion). The presence of heavy metals (including mercury, lead, cadmium, copper, nickel, chromium, and zinc) in the contaminated soil have adverse health effects on human metabolism. Ingestion, contact through the skin, diet through the soil-food chain, respiratory intake, and oral intake can deliver toxic substances to humans.
Waste
As China's waste production increases, insufficient efforts to develop capable recycling systems have been attributed to a lack of environmental awareness.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pollution in China” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.