Three major problems in the sewage treatment industry

Regarding the fact that sewage treatment plants have become the main source of pollution, on May 21, the environmental organization Greenpeace and Nanjing University (Lishui) Institute of Eco-Environment jointly released the 'Research on Sewage Treatment Management in Industrial Parks' report, pointing out that domestic sewage treatment plants are facing infrastructure construction. Insufficient emission standards, imperfect discharge standard system, and multi-management of sewage treatment are three major problems. 'In the whole year of 2018, 56% of the key sewage units that were punished for seriously exceeding the standard were sewage treatment plants.' This group of data recently released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment shows that 'pollution control specialists' who specialize in sewage treatment , It has become the 'main force' of excessive sewage discharge. Regarding the fact that sewage treatment plants have become the main source of pollution, on May 21, the environmental organization Greenpeace and Nanjing University (Lishui) Institute of Eco-Environment jointly released the 'Research on Sewage Treatment Management in Industrial Parks' report, pointing out that domestic sewage treatment plants are facing infrastructure construction. Insufficient emission standards, imperfect discharge standard system, and multi-management of sewage treatment are three major problems. Why do sewage treatment plants, which are supposed to be a line of defense for sewage treatment, turn back pollution? The above report gives suggestions for introducing social capital. Dong Zhanfeng, deputy director of the Environmental Policy Department of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said bluntly, 'Many problems are, to put it bluntly, problems of incentives and money. The problem of corporate funds is particularly important, and a long-term mechanism should be established.' Sewage treatment plants often 'take the blame' for sewage The treatment plant becomes a source of pollution, and in many cases it is passively 'backed up'. As of 2018, front-end companies often have illegal discharges and excessive discharges. Among the 78 sewage treatment plants whose main pollutant discharges seriously exceeded the standards in the quarter of 2018 announced by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to the public, 36 sewage treatment plants exceeded the standards because of upstream pollution. The water exceeds its acceptance standard, resulting in frequent breakdowns and unstable operation of its pollution control facilities. In this regard, Deng Tingting, director of the environmental protection organization Greenpeace Pollution Prevention and Control Project, analyzed that there are multiple problems, 'First of all, the information on the discharge of pre-treated water by front-end enterprises is not fully controlled by the relevant regulatory authorities.' At the same time, Deng Tingting introduced that the current sewage The pipe network part of the transport is also not subject to departmental regulation. In this link, the front-end enterprises may secretly discharge or over-discharge through the pipe network, and once the pipe network leaks, it will be difficult to be held accountable for the pipe network leakage due to the unclear supervision entity. Sewage treatment plants do not have a good grasp of the sewage discharge of upstream units, which is also a major reason for their shift from pollution control to pollution. Therefore, the report 'Research on Sewage Treatment Management in Industrial Parks' suggests that it is imperative to gradually clarify the source of water inflow to sewage treatment plants to ensure their stable and up-to-standard operation. This situation is expected to improve after the pollutant discharge permit system is improved. Tian Jinping, associate professor of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, told the 'Daily Economic News' reporter that after the implementation of the sewage discharge permit system at the end of October this year, the sewage treatment plant can clearly grasp the information of incoming water, which may be better avoided. Penalties for excessive discharge of sewage. Funding is also a problem that sewage treatment plants have been facing for a long time. The current cost of sewage treatment in our country is relatively low, and the differences in the cost of wastewater treatment in different regions and industrial parks have not been considered, resulting in the income of some sewage treatment plants not covering the cost. In this regard, Dong Zhanfeng said that in the future, it is necessary to take into account the differences and establish a reasonable sewage treatment charging mechanism, so that the cost of charging must cover the cost of wastewater treatment operations. Difficulties of making ends meet Lack of funds, on the one hand, makes it difficult for some sewage treatment plants due to insufficient initial design capabilities and backward technology to upgrade and transform; on the other hand, it makes it difficult to operate the sewage treatment plants that have been built. Since 2018, the difficulties faced by environmental protection enterprises have made this problem more complicated. Since 2013, the water treatment sector has introduced a large number of PPP models. After several years of aggressive expansion, in 2018, under the policy environment of financial deleveraging, it was cleaned up and rectified. Many bidders of PPP projects are in financial difficulties. A large number of domestic private environmental protection companies such as OriginWater, Poten Environment, and other leading listed companies in the domestic water treatment industry have begun to introduce state-owned assets. Relying on the strength of state-owned shareholders, they can alleviate the risks of equity pledge and shareholding reduction, and improve the company's operating strength in many ways. In addition, when some local governments launched PPP projects, they did not include specific infrastructure operating expenses into their financial budgets, or the corresponding budgets were seriously insufficient, and they did not have a clear and stable source of payment funds, which resulted in their inability to pay the related expenses of enterprises in full and on time , so that corporate accounts receivable remains high. In 2018, BEWG, a leading enterprise in the industry that operates 704 sewage treatment plants, was named and criticized by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment for long-term excessive sewage discharge. Later, according to the 'Environmental News' report, BEWG pointed out in the special bulletin issued by Beijing Enterprises Water that its Dashiqiao sewage treatment plant exceeded the standard, in addition to the continuous deterioration of water intake and other factors, as of 2018. At the end of June, the local authorities owed a total of 44.97 million yuan in arrears. An industry insider from a water service company said that the sewage treatment plants operated by some parks have created a new model: the connected upper-end enterprises can directly discharge to their sewage treatment plants without any pretreatment, and the whole life from sewage From a cycle point of view, it is cost-effective. 'We hope to see more space for companies and sewage treatment plants to do this at the policy and regulatory levels.'