The sludge problem has become a major concern of sewage treatment plants.

During the Two Sessions (the National People’s Congress and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference) this year, the China Environment Chamber of Commerce (CECC) made a proposal to improve the disposal of sludge in many aspects. Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment responded to the proposal with 4 solutions. Positive signals can be found in this response.

Sludge treatment is the major problem to the sewage treatment plants

Several cases have been reported in the latest round of inspection. According to the proposal made by CECC, the key to the sludge problem is the low investment in sludge treatment.

China has been paying strong attention to wastewater treatment rather than sludge treatment. The development of the equipment for sludge treatment cannot follow up with the increasing demand.

However, as sludge can trigger serious secondary pollution to the environment, the country invests greatly in its management and inspection. This leads to the price raising among the sludge treatment enterprise, as they cannot handle a large capacity of sludge, and are afraid of the strict inspections.

MEE’s responses

CECC’s proposal includes the following suggestions:

1. Promulgation of encouragement policies and national standards related to sludge land use, and improvement of pollution emission measurement indicators of sludge coordinated incineration in power plants and utilization of building materials (bricks and ceramsite).
2. Clarify the payment subjects of sludge treatment and disposal by local governments and pay the cost of sludge disposal timely and fully.
3. Improve the government subsidy mechanism for sludge disposal projects, and the government subsidy policy should be consistent with the technical direction encouraged by China.

For example, it is clear in the technical policy that anaerobic digestion and land utilization are the preferred technical directions, and the power generation subsidy policy for biogas utilization and the preferential procurement policy for sludge compost recycling should be issued.

However, the calorific value of wet sludge is low, and direct incineration has no power generation value. Therefore, the supporting policies of sludge incineration should have prerequisite conditions, and the water content of sludge or the received base calorific value should meet certain requirements, so as to be able to properly subsidize, while the encouragement policy of direct incineration of sludge power generation is not appropriate.

4. Introduce relevant policies to encourage enterprises to participate in the investment, construction, and operation of sludge treatment and disposal facilities.

At present, there are two modes of PPP (BOT) and government procurement service to deal with municipal sludge in the market. Due to the short contact time of the government procurement service contract, the disposal mode is unstable, which is not conducive to reducing the government’s disposal cost and has a higher operational risk. It is suggested that the country should guide local governments to adopt the long-term agreement mode.

There are four aspects in total, including policy and standard, cost, technology direction, and various business models.

MEE responded with 4 points.

❍ One is to formulate and implement the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Urban Sewage Treatment and Resource Utilization “and” Sludge Harmless Treatment Implementation Plan “, focusing on solving the difficulties in sludge disposal and promoting the relevant work of sludge harmless treatment.

❍ Second, arrange investment from the central budget to support the construction of sewage sludge treatment projects. In May 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Special Management Measures for Investment from the Central Budget in Pollution Control, Energy Conservation and Carbon Emission Reduction” to continue to support the construction of sewage treatment projects.

❍ Third, improve technological innovation and application. We will further leverage the synergistic role of industrial policies with fiscal, taxation, and financial policies, guide financial institutions to support environmental protection equipment and promote the healthy development of environmental protection industries. Focusing on key core technologies and equipment, we will carry out research and development. We will establish technological innovation centers for the environmental protection industry, carry out trials and demonstrations of advanced and applicable energy-saving and environmental protection technologies and equipment, and speed up the spread and application of new technologies and equipment.

❍ Fourth, strengthen supervision and inspection. Carry out actions on “cleaning up the waste,” strictly investigate and punish typical cases of illegal disposal of sludge and form a strong deterrent effect.

Continue to bring the sludge disposal problem into the focus of central ecological environmental protection supervision, urge local party committees and governments to effectively improve their understanding, increase investment, actively promote the construction of sludge disposal capacity, and improve the level of sludge harmless disposal and resource utilization.

What are the signals from MEE’s response?

the policy is available

“14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Urban Sewage Treatment and Resource Utilization” is issued in June this year. And has given clear numbers for the indicators and clear technological direction.

the money is yet to come

In the “14th Five-year Plan” for the Development of Urban Sewage Treatment and Resource Utilization, the “improvement of price tax mechanism” is mentioned, which stipulates:

In accordance with the principle of covering the normal operation of sewage treatment facilities and the cost of sludge disposal and making a reasonable profit, the standard of sewage treatment fee should be reasonably established in all regions, and dynamic adjustment should be made according to the requirements of local water pollution prevention and control targets, considering the improvement of sewage discharge standard and reasonable increase of cost of sludge disposal and other factors.

However, this is only a rough provision “to consider the cost of sludge disposal” and does not specify the source of the cost of sludge disposal.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment mentioned in the “Pollution Control, Energy saving and Carbon Reduction from the central budget investment management measures”, but did not see the word “sludge”.

Therefore, in terms of funding, there seems to be no funding for sludge disposal at present, and the industry needs to continue to appeal.

the technology route is initially clear

In terms of technical route, it has clearly encouraged the use of thermal hydrolysis, anaerobic digestion, aerobic fermentation, drying, and other methods to carry out the harmless treatment.

Business models are yet to be implemented

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment does not seem to have mentioned this in its response.

The regulation is taking shape

In strengthening supervision, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is relatively clear.

In this way, it can also continue to urge local governments to pay attention to the sludge problem and increase investment in this aspect.

In general, the response from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment shows the above five signals: the policy is available, the money is yet to come, the technology route is initially clear, the business models are yet to be implemented, and the regulation is taking shape.

Although it has not fully reached everyone’s expectations, it is also a certain degree of progress than before.

Nothing can be accomplished overnight. Currently, the progress is still very encouraging.

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