China's Heavy Metal Pollution Law on Cultivated Land Has Been Drafted

Soil pollution has a certain concealment, but the harm is very serious.

Chinanews.com reported on Feb. 3 that compared with visible pollution such as black water and gray sky, soil pollution has a certain degree of concealment. At the Sino-French high-level seminar on the environment held by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics a few days ago, Professor Wang Shuyi, director of the Institute of Environmental Law of Wuhan University, revealed that a law on the prevention and control of soil pollution is brewing and will be promulgated soon.

Wang Shuyi, the chief expert on the law, said that soil pollution in China has affected the quality of cultivated land, food safety and even human health. The area of soil pollution is increasing. In the late 1980s, the pollution area in China was only a few million hectares, but now it has exceeded 10 million hectares. The types of soil pollution are diversified, among which heavy metal pollution is serious. according to the Institute of Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the area of cultivated land polluted by heavy metals such as cadmium, arsenic, chromium and lead is nearly 20 million hectares, accounting for about 1/5 of the total cultivated land. The national grain production is reduced by more than 10 million tons every year as a result of heavy metal pollution. In addition, pesticides, antibiotics and pathogens have also become the sources of land pollution.

"soil pollution, which is invisible to the naked eye, often needs to be determined by testing soil quality and its impact on human and animal health." Wang Shuyi told reporters that soil, atmosphere and water are the three major elements of the human environment, and almost all pollution will enter the soil. "the objective situation of soil pollution forces us to take legislative measures to deal with it."

The expert group on land pollution prevention and control law, which is composed of jurists, environmental experts, agricultural experts, and water conservancy experts, believes that China's current legislation on the prevention and control of soil pollution can focus on "treatment", but "prevention" should not be neglected. The reason why the current situation of soil pollution in China is more serious is probably related to the lack of attention to the prevention of soil pollution in the past.

The expert opinion draft of China's soil pollution Prevention and Control Law has been completed and submitted to the relevant departments for comments, which will be submitted to the National people's Congress for deliberation after improvement.