Industrial parks help businesses and protect environment

Huang has shut down many dyeing plants that failed to meet environmental standards. But closing plants is not sustainable because it hurts the economy and draws the ire of plant owners and workers, she said.

"The best solution is to move the plants into industrial parks, " Huang said, because polluted water can be collectively treated in water treatment plants approved and monitored by the local government.

In industrial parks, polluted water is pumped from factories through pipelines into one large water treatment plant. Quality of the treated water is constantly tested and monitored by provincial, city and local environment authorities. About 40 percent of the treated water is recycled.

Of the remaining 76 dying plants in Xintang, 68 have been relocated to industrial parks. The rest will soon be relocated, Huang said.

"We often worried that our plants might be closed or suspended due to pollution. Now, we just leave the issue to the water treatment plant," said Li Zhixiang, head of Nanfang Clothing Ltd's dyeing plant.

Nanfang Clothing is one of the 22 plants that have moved into Xintang's Xinzhou Industrial Park. It pays the water treatment plant about 10 yuan for each cubic meter of polluted water taken.

The water treatment plant has a daily capacity of 100,000 tons, which means it can receive more than 1 million yuan in a day, said Zhao Keyin, head of the water treatment plant for Hong Kong-based To Kee Holdings.

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Zhao declined to give the plant's financial statistics, only saying that it was a good investment. "It takes only one large investment to gain stable long-term profits."

The dyeing plants are willing to pay reasonable prices because they know how much it costs to get the water up to national standards, he added.

China had 1,993 water treatment plants with a total daily capacity of more than 100 million cubic meters by the end of 2009, according to statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. But the capacity is not enough to treat all of China's polluted water.

The draft of China's 12th five-year plan, which is up for approval from the National People's Congress in early March, also stressed further environmental protection measures to tackle water, air and soil pollution that pose a threat to people's health.

The public are becoming more demanding for improvements in the quality of air, water, food and the look of the environment. The government must work hard to protect the environment for the people, said Zhou Shengxian, China's Minister of Environmental Protection.

"Green development and building a sustainable economy are important global trends. China must restructure its economy and reform its development mode to succeed in the international arena," Zhou said.