"Ten Atmospheric Measures 3.0" to promote VOCs emission reduction, what is lacking in governance, what is made up by policy丨Focus on the "Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality"
The Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"), which has been hailed by the industry as the "Ten Atmospheric Measures Version 3.0", was recently issued by the State Council. VOCs are high-frequency words related to emission reduction, and they appear 28 times. Among the 36 measures in the full text, 12 have requirements for the treatment of VOCs (oil fumes, odors).
Behind the figures, the national air pollution control action plan has paid more and more attention to the prevention and control of VOCs pollution. In an interview with this reporter, industry experts pointed out that a number of measures in the "Action Plan" are aimed at some weak links in VOCs governance, and the fine control of the whole process of VOCs will also drive the transformation of the industrial structure, which is of guiding significance for the high-quality development of the economy.
The shortcomings of VOCs governance have become a springboard for high-quality development, releasing a clear signal to enterprises
VOCs control is a weak link in the field of air control, and it is also one of the obvious shortcomings.
On December 11, at a regular policy briefing of the State Council, Liu Bingjiang, chief engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment, pointed out: "[China's] sulfur dioxide treatment is relatively thorough and successful, but nitrogen oxides and VOCs treatment is still on the way. ”
Previously, several national air pollution control action plans have made arrangements for the prevention and control of VOCs pollution.
In the "Ten Atmospheric Measures", it is required to "promote the control of volatile organic compound pollution";
In the "Three-year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense War", it is required that "volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in key areas fully implement special emission limits for air pollutants" and "implement special VOCs remediation plans";
Now, in the Action Plan, the relevant references have changed to "vigorously promote VOCs emission reduction", "optimize the structure of raw and auxiliary materials and products containing VOCs", and "strengthen the comprehensive treatment of the whole process and all links of VOCs". In the target indicators, the total emission limit is clarified, that is, "the total VOCs emissions will be reduced by more than 10% compared with 2020".
Industry experts said in an interview that the series of changes in requirements reflect the increasingly stringent control, and the "Action Plan" focuses on the weak links in VOCs governance, highlighting the fine control of the whole process.
Ma Yongliang, an associate researcher at the Institute of Air Pollution and Control at Tsinghua University, told reporters: "Source control is a relatively weak link in the past, and the source substitution measures for raw and auxiliary materials such as coatings, inks, adhesives, and cleaning agents with low VOCs content are obviously insufficient. Although there have been some guiding opinions in the past, the relative cost of new green products will be relatively high, so the initiative of the market to actively use it is low, and the market's profit-seeking will lead to better sales of traditional products with high VOCs content. ”
The "Action Plan" proposes to "optimize the structure of raw and auxiliary materials and products containing VOCs", "strictly implement VOCs content restriction standards in production, sales, import, use and other links", "increase policy support, and support the cultivation of a number of leading enterprises in the fields of production and use of raw and auxiliary materials with low (no) VOCs content, VOCs pollution control, ultra-low emissions, environmental and atmospheric composition monitoring, etc." ”
Ma Yongliang pointed out that the above-mentioned requirements have laid out new green production capacity from the production end, which is a step forward from source control, which is more beneficial to the control of VOCs emissions and relieves the pressure of end treatment.
At present, for enterprises, to deploy source emission reduction in advance and fully use raw and auxiliary materials with low VOCs content that meet national requirements, their products can not only be included in the positive list and the government's green procurement list, but also mean that they will win more green benefits in the future high-quality development industrial layout.
In addition, the Action Plan proposes to "improve the environmental protection tax collection system and accelerate the inclusion of VOCs in the scope of collection".
Ye Daiqi, a professor at the School of Environment and Energy at South China University of Technology and director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Volatile Organic Compound Pollution Control Technology and Equipment, said: "Raising the compliance cost of enterprises through the collection of environmental taxes and fees is an effective means to promote emission reduction. Giving full play to the leverage adjustment role of environmental tax can effectively guide VOCs-related enterprises to change from passive emission reduction to active emission reduction, and promote the green development of enterprises. ”
In terms of comprehensively carrying out the upgrading and transformation of traditional industrial clusters, the "Action Plan" makes it clear that all localities should combine the characteristics of industrial clusters and build central heating centers, centralized spraying centers, centralized organic solvent recovery and disposal centers, and activated carbon centralized regeneration centers according to local conditions.
Ma Yongliang said: "These measures emphasize resource sharing and implement centralized governance, which is conducive to promoting high-quality development and high-level protection in tandem. For example, the centralized recycling and disposal center of organic solvents is a potential combination of policies that synergize pollution reduction and carbon reduction. For a long time, we often take the practice of 'burning it' for high-concentration organic solvents, which is actually not conducive to the control of carbon emissions, and in addition, if the solvent recovered by small and medium-sized enterprises cannot be directly reused, it will be treated as hazardous waste, which is also a burden on the enterprise itself. The construction of a centralized recovery and disposal center for organic solvents is a good solution. ”
"These industrial upgrading directions cannot rely entirely on market participation, but also need to be organized by the government. In fact, this is also a clear signal to the local management department that this piece can be built, and the incineration of what should be incinerated and the recycling of what should be recycled. Ma Yongliang said.
It directly addresses the difficulties in governance such as the proliferation of simple and inefficient facilities and the lack of effective implementation of unorganized emissions
A number of measures in the Action Plan directly address the weaknesses in VOCs governance.
Ye Daiqi introduced: "Previously, Article 46 of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law stipulated that industrial coating enterprises should use coatings with low VOCs content, but there were no relevant requirements for printing and other key industries that contain VOCs.In addition, the currently issued "Technical Requirements for Coating Products with Low Volatile Organic Compound Content" (GB/T 38597-2020) is a recommended national standard, and whether this standard can be used to determine violations is still inconclusive, resulting in the failure to land from time to time.”
Ye Daiqi said that in response to the above situation, the "Action Plan" proposes to "promote the revision of laws and regulations, and clarify the legal responsibility of enterprises to use raw and auxiliary materials with low (no) VOCs content", which is a response to the incomplete coverage of VOCs industries in source control and the recommended standards for supporting national standards.
In view of the fact that there is no VOCs content limit standard for consumer goods and other products and the VOCs content judgment is more complicated, the Action Plan also proposes to "study and formulate mandatory national standards for VOCs content limits for household detergents, insecticides and aerosols" and "establish a product labeling system for low (no) VOCs content".
"These measures will also help enterprises to reasonably select raw and auxiliary materials and efficient supervision by grassroots law enforcement personnel. He added.
Ye Daiqi introduced that in view of the flood of simple and inefficient facilities for terminal treatment, enterprises generally use activated carbon adsorption technology, and most of the measured treatment effects are far less than 80%, the "Action Plan" puts forward the "development of activated carbon technical requirements for organic waste gas treatment".
In view of the problems of unorganized emissions such as airtightness and ineffective collection, the Action Plan clarifies the sealing/collection requirements for storage tanks, automobile tankers, and sewage treatment sites, and proposes that cities and key industrial parks with concentrated petrochemical and chemical industries in key areas should establish a unified leak detection and repair information management platform by the end of 2024.
In addition, the Action Plan also deploys to strengthen the scientific support for decision-making, and proposes the next research direction for weak links.
Ye Daiqi said that at present, small and medium-sized enterprises are difficult to achieve stable standards with simple adsorption and other technologies, and the cost of using more efficient adsorption concentration + combustion and other technologies is high.
The research direction of "improving the effect and stability of key functional adsorption catalytic materials for VOCs" aims at the problems such as the poor adsorption/regeneration performance of existing adsorbent materials, the easy poisoning and inactivation of catalytic materials, and the poor treatment effect of adsorption catalytic materials on phenol and halogen-containing VOCs, so as to further strengthen the terminal treatment of VOCs in enterprises with scientific support.
With the control of catering fumes and foul odors, the key small things around the masses are tackled
The "Action Plan" proposes to carry out special treatment of catering fumes and odors. The pollution of cooking fumes, foul odors and peculiar smells is closely related to the daily life of ordinary people. At present, these two aspects account for a very high proportion of all environmental complaints and atmospheric environmental complaints, as a typical disturbance pollution, it is related to the people's sense of environmental gain and happiness, and there is an urgent need for governance.
At present, some VOCs treatment programs issued by the state and local governments have emphasized the focus on VOCs treatment and coordinated management of odor and odor.
On the other hand, most of the cooking fumes are emitted in the form of gases, and their main components are VOCs and inhalable suspended particulate matter (mainly PM2.5 and PM10).
Wang Can, a professor at Tianjin University and director of the Volatile Organic Compounds and Odor Pollution Prevention and Control Committee of the Tianjin Sustainable Development Research Association, told reporters: "The deployment of special governance in the Action Plan is actually a response to the people's demand for a high-quality environment, and it has a good role in promoting the public's living environment and sense of well-being. ”
"In the past, we paid more attention to some 'large-scale' pollution, such as PM2.5 and nitrogen oxides, which often involved multiple industries and regions. However, the scale of pollution sources of catering fumes, foul odors and other substances is relatively small, and may involve a certain point source or a certain restaurant. It can be said that the targets covered in the Action Plan should be more comprehensive, focusing on both 'large-scale' pollution sources and some 'small-scale' pollution sources. ”
Wang Can believes that in the past, the pollution of catering fumes and foul odors and peculiar smells has not been paid enough attention, and the "Action Plan" proposes to carry out special treatment, which will give birth to the development of new markets in related environmental protection segments, and will also release new scientific and technological research needs.
"Because despite the emphasis on coordinated emission reduction, the industry sources, pollution forms, and pollution periods of catering fumes and odors are very different from those of conventional pollutants, so their treatment processes, equipment, technologies, and needs are also different. As a result, this will lead to technological advances in areas such as odor identification, odor pollution assessment and traceability. Wang Can said.
