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Rural factories won't fix Chinese pollution

Nature volume 490, pages 342–343 (2012)Cite this article

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Moving factories from cities to rural areas is becoming more common. The relocation by local government of a US$1.4-billion paraxylene plant from Xiamen City in Fujian province to the less-developed Gulei Town was not welcomed by residents (T. Ma China Environ. Ser. 10, 33–49; 2008/2009). Their protests received little media attention or help from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the new plant is now almost complete.

Shifting pollution from urban to rural areas can only be a short-term fix. For example, rural and semi-rural factories trebled their contribution to the national wastewater discharge between 1990 and 2007 (see go.nature.com/kdgsh3; in Chinese), and there are more than 200 cancer-cluster villages in China where pollution is suspected as the major cause of death.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southampton, UK

    Hong Yang

  2. University College, London, UK

    Roger J. Flower & Julian R. Thompson

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  1. Hong Yang
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  2. Roger J. Flower
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  3. Julian R. Thompson
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Correspondence to Hong Yang.

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Yang, H., Flower, R. & Thompson, J. Rural factories won't fix Chinese pollution. Nature 490, 342–343 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/490342d

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