Shanghai’s environmental watchdog is pushing policies that will hit polluting firms in the city the hardest: their pockets.
Under the new policy, companies that fail to comply with the city's waste treatment standards will have to pay third-party agencies a hefty fee to process the polluting discharges.
"Third-party companies are more professional in dealing with pollution and its treatment. They are a safer choice in the fight against pollution," Zhang Quan, head of Shanghai's Environmental Protection Bureau, told the Shanghai Daily newspaper on Wednesday.
"Those causing pollution have to be made responsible for its treatment as well. Now, they will be told to pay the costs of the treatment," he said.
The regulations are expected to force companies to bolster their environmental protection facilities to avoid the high costs of treatment.
According to Shanghai Daily, there are over 150 companies in Shanghai currently approved by the government to process discharges.
The bureau also unveiled plans to set up an information platform that lists down polluting companies and treatment firms to aid in faster processing and cooperation.
"The platform will be built to make third-party governance more market-oriented," said Wang Qiang, chief of the bureau's comprehensive planning department.
Wang hopes that the list will be made available to the public for stricter supervision.
"It is very demanding of the 400 members of the Shanghai Environment Supervision Brigade to keep an eye on the over 10,000 major polluting companies," he said. "Apart from the technical monitoring methods, we want town and county level officials to organize their own supervision teams.
"They should also involve the general public. But before that, we need to come up with a more transparent information about the companies," Wang added.
Third-party governance is not new in China, but it is rare due to the steep costs involved.
"Some heavily polluting companies are not keen to cooperate with another company unless we come up with a policy," said Xu Jiangang, general manager of Shanghai Oriental Environment Industry Co. Ltd., a state-owned company assisting the city's electricity companies in reducing sulfur and carbon dioxide emissions.
Shanghai has been stepping up its anti-pollution efforts in recent years. In 2014, over 20 companies involved in serious illegal discharges were fined a total of 100 million yuan, according to the city government. In April this year, Shanghai citizens were offered up to 5,000 yuan for reporting environmental law violators.