On May 21 2013, the MEP issued a notice to its subordinates, the affected industry associations and the glyphosateTC (PMIDA) manufacturing companies that environmental verification is to be imposed on all the manufacturers in the next three years and the name lists of compliant manufacturers will be compiled for public reference.
The notice announced that the verification is to be conducted on a “voluntary base”. If the company is confident with its environmental performance, it can apply for the verification with the local competent authorities of environmental protection at provincial level. The application should be submitted by filling the “Application Form of Environmental Verification upon Glyphosate (PMIDA) Manufacturing Enterprises” and other documentary materials. The provincial authorities will take primary check on the applicants, which consists of file-check and on-site inspection. If the outcome is satisfying, experts from the MEP, CPCIF (China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation) and CCPIA (China Crop Protection Industry Association) will be invited for further review. If necessary, MEP will take random on-site inspection on these preliminarily checked manufacturers. Finally, the verified companies will be announced by the MEP for public comment and their names will be added into the “Name List of Environmental Compliant Glyphosate(PMIDA) Manufacturing Enterprises”, which will be copied to other administrative departments such as MIIT, MoA, MOFCOM and AQSIQ, etc. The listed companies are subject to the periodic investigation from the MEP and the supervision from all sectors of the community.
MEP plans to publish the first batch of the name list by the end of December this year, thus the companies are required to file the applications by July 30 and result of the preliminary check will be collected by September 30. From FY 2014 and 2015, two batches of the list will be released by the end of every September, thus the applications should be submitted by March and the result of the preliminary check will be collected by July each year. Finally, the MEP will fulfill the environmental verification on the manufacturers nationwide and three batches of the compliant companies will be compiled.
The detailed requirements of the verification are provided in a guidance document, the “Guidance of Environmental Verification upon the Glyphosate (PMIDA) Manufacturing Enterprises”, which was released with the MEP’s Notice. The Guidance provides the template and filling instruction of the “Application Form of Environmental Verification upon Glyphosate (PMIDA) Manufacturing Enterprises”, as well as other documentary materials required. The environmental performance of the manufacturers will be determined by the conformity to the environmental concerned regulations and operations of the environmental facilities.
The competent authorities at provincial level will verify the conformity through the application materials and the data gathered from the regular supervision upon the manufacturers:
The approval document of the Environmental Impact Assessment Report which is required to be generated during the new construction, re-construction and expansion of production facilities will be checked. If the approval document contains some environmental suggestions, the authority will check whether the suggestions have been adopted by the manufacturers;
Whether the company has met the pollutants discharge reduction objective which is required by the discharge permit or the national/local pollutants reduction plan;
Whether the company has implemented its commitment of pollutant controls;
Compliance with the Discharge Permits System;
Conformity to the “Law on the Promotion of Clean Production”;
Environment violation and environmental accidents;
Internal environmental management system;
The glycine-route manufacturers would be required to be equipped with recycle facilities of chloromethane, methanol, triethylamine and methyl, etc. The IDA-route manufacturers should be equipped with disposal devices of formaldehyde, ammonia and hydrogen chloride, etc.;
Environmentally acceptable discharge requirement will be imposed on waste water treatment approaches such as dephosphorization and biochemical treatment;
Capacity-matched mother liquor recycle unit (phosphorus and sodium chloride) should be installed;
The solid waste should be disposed or incinerated under the GB 18484-2011 and other environmental requirement and the mother liquid should not be used for Glyphosate AS;
Other infrastructures and auxiliary facilities should be installed, including the dust-removal, desulfurization, denitration, leak water collection, emergency pool, warning device, etc;
For the glycine-route manufacturers, recovery rate of the glyphosate technical material should not be less than 70% and the IDA-manufacturers should achieve the recovery rate of no less than 15%. The comprehensive utilization rate of phosphorus should be no less than 80% while more than 85% of the sodium chloride should be recovered;
Maintenance of the name list will dynamic as MEP will re-examine and randomly inspect the verified manufacturers in the future and disqualified companies will be removed from the list. The notice has been copied to other administrative departments and institutions at the same time ,which included the NDRC, MIIT, MoA, MOFCOM, GAC, SAIC, AQSIQ, SAWS, People's Bank of China, SASAC (State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission), China Banking Regulatory Commission, General Office of China Securities Regulatory Commission, the CCCMC (China Chamber of Commerce of Metals Minerals & Chemicals imported& exporters). The name list would also be copied to these departments, which means the non-listed manufacturers would suffer from potential restraints in pesticide registration, manufacturing authorization, bank loan, listing financing and customs clearance, etc.
Share price of Sanonda, Jiangshan and Yangnong have risen dramatically after MEP’s notice and Wynca even reached the limit up on May 27.
