Shandong Provincial Environmental Protection Department: Control VOCs Emissions and Continuously Improve Air Environmental Quality

On the morning of April 19th, the Information Office of the Shandong Provincial People's Government held a press conference, inviting Mr. Yao Yunhui, the deputy director of the Shandong Provincial Environmental Protection Department, to introduce the water and air environmental quality conditions of Shandong Province in the first quarter of 2017, the ecological compensation assessment results, and the environmental protection law enforcement situation, and to answer and respond to the environmental protection hot issues that the society is concerned about. 

Mr. Yao Yunhui, the deputy director, introduced that the Shandong Provincial Environmental Protection Department has recently issued two emission standards for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the automotive manufacturing industry and the furniture manufacturing industry. VOCs are important precursors of atmospheric complex pollution characterized by haze and ozone, and some VOCs have carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects and can directly cause harm to human health. Therefore, both the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" and the "Shandong Province 2013-2020 Air Pollution Prevention and Control Plan" have regarded VOCs control as a key task in air pollution prevention and control. How to effectively control VOCs pollution has become one of the key tasks for environmental management departments. Currently, there are still few emission standards for volatile organic compounds in the country, which cannot meet the needs of our province's environmental management. Under this background, it is particularly urgent and necessary to rush to formulate our province's emission standards for volatile organic compounds. 

VOCs originate from processes such as chemical production, fuel coating manufacturing, and solvent use, mainly involving the organic chemical, surface coating, and printing industries. Currently, our province has issued two emission standards for volatile organic compounds in the automotive manufacturing industry and the furniture manufacturing industry. The emission standard for volatile organic compounds in the printing industry has entered the approval process, the emission standard for the surface coating industry, the organic chemical industry, and the comprehensive emission standard for volatile organic compounds have been included in the project plan, and the compilation of these three standards will be fully launched this year. It is expected to be issued and implemented in the first half of 2018. At that time, our province's emission standards for volatile organic compounds will cover all industries that emit volatile organic compounds, playing an important role in controlling VOCs emissions in our province, promoting the transformation and adjustment of the structure, and promoting the continuous improvement of air environmental quality.