Action Plan for Source Control of Soil Pollution Released

To reduce soil pollution and the environmental impact of contaminated soil from the source, comprehensively control soil pollution risks, and promote soil health and sustainable use, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and six other departments recently jointly issued the "Soil Pollution Source Prevention and Control Action Plan" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan").

The overall goal of the "Action Plan" is to achieve significant results in soil pollution source prevention and control by 2027. It also sets three specific indicators for industrial and mining enterprises and already contaminated soil: the hazard investigation and rectification pass rate of key soil pollution regulatory units should reach over 90%, the safe utilization rate of contaminated arable land should reach over 94%, and the safe use of construction land should be effectively guaranteed.

The "Action Plan" follows three "adherence" principles, focusing on source prevention, source reduction, and source treatment, promoting coordinated governance and cost reduction with efficiency improvement. It adheres to prevention first, promoting source prevention by optimizing industrial layout, advancing green transformation, strengthening technological innovation, and enforcing mandatory clean production audits to reduce soil pollution generation at the source and save later environmental remediation costs. It adheres to coordinated efforts, strengthening source reduction by enhancing environmental management of key soil pollution regulatory units and chemical parks, inspecting and rectifying pipeline leaks, strictly controlling heavy metal pollution emissions, strengthening solid waste environmental management and comprehensive utilization, and coordinating pollution prevention of water, air, and solid waste. It adheres to classified measures, advancing source treatment by phasing the tracing and remediation of heavy metal pollution in agricultural land soil, cutting off the chain of pollutants entering agricultural soil. It strengthens risk control and remediation of soil pollution in vacated land from industries such as pesticides and coking, as well as large and complex sites, gradually eliminating environmental risks to sensitive targets.

The "Action Plan" proposes 15 key tasks in four areas, including improving the policy system for soil pollution source prevention, strictly implementing pollution prevention measures, addressing long-term accumulated severe pollution problems, and improving institutional mechanisms. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will work with various departments and regions to promote the implementation of these tasks to ensure the "Action Plan" is effectively put into practice.