Establishing Responsible Care Mechanism and Realizing
Sustainable Development


By Zhang Ruihe, CNCIC


Foreword


China's chemical industry enjoys rapid and continuous
development, however it also brought threatens to people's life
and assets safety due to the frequent occurrence of
environmental pollution and safety accidents in the chemical
production. Health, safety and environmental quality have
become hotspots concerned by China chemical industry even the
whole society. Only through the calling for and popularization
of responsible care to help enterprises build the awareness of
health, safety and environmental protection, China's chemical
industry can realize the sustainable development, which will
benefit the development of China's recycling economy.
   The government is also perfecting and making a series of laws,
regulation and standards related to responsible care to
strengthen the monitoring and management of health, safety and
environment quality, so as to realize the goal of reducing
pollutant discharging proposed in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan
period (2006-2010), solve those problems which hindered the
development of society and economy, especially those hurt the
health and life safety of people, insist on the leading position
of safety and prevention as the main method to grantee people's
life and assets' safety, and construct a harmonious society.


Safety accident


Since 2005, China has taken a series of measures to promote the
production safety, but the situation remains grave. According
to the statistics revealed by the State Administration of Work
Safety (SAWS) on January 4th, 2006, in 2005 there were totally
727 945 accidents and 126 760 people were killed, a decrease of
9.4% and 7.3% respectively compared with those of 2004. Among
these, 164 are dangerous chemical accidents with a death toll
of 299 people, 29 accidents and 23 people fewer than those of
2004, falling 15.2% and 9.1% down respectively. 110 Fireworks
and crackers accidents caused death of 217 people, 28 accidents
and 105 people fewer than those of 2004, decreasing 20.2% and
32.7% respectively.
    Another statistics from China National Chemical Information
Center (CNCIC) showed that total 516 chemical safety accidents
occurred in China in 2005.
    Review of three grave chemical safety accidents and sudden
chemical pollution events are as follows:




   1. Liquefied chlorine leakage accident


The liquefied chlorine leakage, caused by a truck collision in
the evening of March 29th, 2005 in Huai'an city of Jiangsu
province, has killed 29 and hospitalized 436, most of whom are
local farmers living nearby. 1 560 people were sent to do medical
checkup in hospital, 10 500 farmers were displaced, a great deal
of livestock and crops were killed or damaged. The accident
resulted in a direct economic loss of RMB 17 million and the
Suqian to Baoying section (around 110 kilometre) of Beijing to
Shanghai expressway was closed for 20 hours.
   Because of the overloading, discarding tires and unqualified
safety work pieces, the truck ran out of control after one of
its tires exploded suddenly and rammed into a cargo truck.
Leaving out the operation regulation or emergency response, the
driver even did not have the basic protection knowledge. After
the accident occurred, the driver and the supercargo got away
from the scene, which led to the missing of the best rescue
opportunity and worsening the accident consequences.


   2. Accident in PetroChina Jilin Petrochemical


On November 13th, 2005, a big explosion broke out in the new
aniline unit in Bi-Benzene Factory under PetroChina Jilin
Petrochemical Company. The direct reason of this accident was
a worker's false operation, who did not turn off the valve, as
a result, the long time high temperature of feeding system caused
the blast. Following this, the air was sucked into the T101 tower
in negative pressure and led to the exploding of T101 tower and
T102 tower, as well as the two nitrobenzene store tanks and
auxiliary equipments connecting with the two towers. The fire
caused another blast of two nitric acid tanks as well as the
burning of a nitrobenzene tanks and tow benzene tanks in the near
55# tank zone. The fire was not extinguished until the next
morning.
   In this accident, 50 000 people nearby were emergency
evaluation, 5 died, 1 lost, 2 were seriously wounded and 21 were
flesh wound.
   Chemical accidents and chemical pollution are very closely
associated with each other. In the emergency dealing of this
accident, toxic water contained benzene and aniline was
discharged to Songhua River, forming an 80 kilometre long
pollution zone, resulting in four-day water supply interruption
from November 23rd, 2005 in Harbin, Heilongjiang province and
social panic.
   In order to eliminate the water pollution of Songhua River
and provide clean water to 62.55 million citizens in the drainage
area, the State Environmental Protection Administration of
China held a suggestion collection conference for the Songhua
River Water Pollution Prevention and Control Draft in Harbin.
China plans to spend 5 years to treat the water pollution in
Songhua River with a total investment of 26.6 billion from 2006.


   3.  Explosion and chemical leakage accident in Chongqing


Just ten days after the blast in Jilin Petrochemical, on November
24th, Chongqing Dianjiang Yingte Chemical Company exploded
because of active chemical reaction in the production, 1 killed
and 4 injured. Due to benzene chemicals leakage, 6 000 people
near the plant were emergency evacuation and large amount of dead
fishes appeared in the near water.


Environmental pollution


Besides the sudden chemical pollution accidents, the routin
pollution have brought threatens to China's drinking water
safety. In March 2005, during the World Water Day also the China
Water Week,  an official from the Agriculture and Rural
Commission of People's Congress of China said  "China's
drinking water safety is facing an austere threaten, mainly
caused by the water pollution.”
   According to the data published by Ministry of Water Resource
in China's water resource communique of 2004, China's waste
water discharging amount has reached 69.3 billion tons in 2004,
two third of which was industrial waste water and one third was
sanitary sewage and polluted water discharged by the service
sector.
   Based on the water quality data concluded by monitoring more
than 3200 cross sections of 1300 rivers in 2004, the water
quality assessments of 130 000 kilometre of river were made. The
result showed that in 59.4% of appraised river length, all-year
water accorded with or excelled the III sort (can be used as
drinking water). According to 412 water quality monitoring cross
sections, the proportions of cross sections with Ⅰ～Ⅲ sort、
Ⅳ～Ⅴ sort and low grade water quality were 41.8%、30.3% and
27.9% respectively. Most of China's cities are located in the
downstream of river, so as high as 90% of urban water areas were
contaminated, which brought threatens to water supply safety.
   At present, as main water consumers also the main water
pollution factor, the number of China's chemical enterprises is