How to Introduce Market-Based Mechanisms into Rural Pollutant Treatment

Rural environmental pollution is a long-standing issue, and its treatment is a broad, massive, long-term and arduous task. In recent years, through a series of activities such as ecological civilized villages, the year of grassroots development, and the improvement and upgrading of rural appearances, the basic production and living facilities of most villages in Hebei Province have been significantly improved, but problems such as garbage littering in front of and behind houses and in ditches and ponds, arbitrary discharge of sewage, and dirty and messy environments still exist in many places, becoming a major “stubborn disease” troubling people's lives. How to achieve long-term cleanliness of rural pollutants has become a major issue that needs to be actively addressed and resolved.

In June 2015, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, fully launched the “Rural Garbage Centralized Cleanup Campaign Month” activity, and the environment of villages, rivers and farms was significantly improved, achieving phased results. However, whether the clean and beautiful rural environment can be maintained for the long term, and whether the rebound phenomenon of “cleaned when dirty, dirty again when cleaned” can be thoroughly eradicated, depends on whether the long-term mechanism for rural pollutant treatment is effectively implemented.

I. Sources and Harms of Rural Pollutants

1. Chaotic discharge of human and livestock excrement. At present, many villages still have one cesspit per household, and livestock excrement can be seen everywhere. Without reasonable treatment methods, it not only affects the village appearance but also more easily pollutes water bodies. 2. Ordinary domestic garbage has nowhere to be treated and is piled up everywhere, causing flies, mosquitoes and rats to breed in large numbers, which not only seriously pollutes the air and water bodies but also easily spreads diseases. 3. Pollution from various types of garbage such as pesticide bottles, plastic bags, agricultural films and other plastic products, paper products, metal products, and waste batteries. These items are not recycled by anyone, are non-degradable, and pollute water quality. 4. Farmers randomly discard sick and dead livestock and poultry into rivers, ditch banks and other places, becoming an important pollution source that seriously pollutes rivers and water body environments.

II. Solutions

1. Use market-based operation methods to reduce the government's management pressure and attract various social funds, social forces and social resources to participate in rural garbage treatment and environmental construction. Since the beginning of this year, Lulong County, Qinhuangdao City, taking the opportunity of being a pilot county for integrated urban-rural centralized garbage treatment in Hebei Province and the Beidaihe coastal waters environmental treatment activity, has carried out rural garbage cleanup work in depth and explored the establishment of a long-term mechanism. On the basis of the successful market-based operation of environmental sanitation in the county seat area, it adopted the PPP model to extend market-based environmental sanitation operations to townships and villages, explored and established a new integrated urban-rural garbage model of “unified collection, unified transport, and centralized treatment” by cleaning companies, and took the lead in the city in implementing market-based operation of rural environmental sanitation. Of the county's 548 administrative villages, 463 have been handed over to cleaning companies, with a takeover rate of 84.5%. Through the effective management of cleaning companies, Lulong's rural environment has been greatly improved and the rural appearance significantly enhanced. 2. Advocate vigorously developing the use of new energy sources such as biogas. The government uniformly helps rural areas establish excrement and sewage networks and septic tanks, develop rural biogas utilization, and reasonably eliminate pollution from human and livestock excrement. 3. Through vigorous publicity and strict institutional constraints to regulate villagers' behavior, guide education and supervision should be carried out simultaneously. “Rural Environmental Sanitation and Garbage Treatment Management Measures” suited to local realities can be formulated according to local conditions, using institutions to regulate villagers' behavior and bringing rural environmental sanitation management onto an institutionalized and standardized track. At the same time, it is necessary to intensify public opinion publicity so that the concept that protecting the environment is everyone's responsibility takes deep root in people's hearts.

The market-based operation mechanism of environmental sanitation is an effective way to achieve long-term treatment of rural pollutants. The exploration of market-based rural sanitation and cleaning in Lulong County has only just begun, but it is an innovation in the field of rural environmental sanitation and cleaning in Qinhuangdao City and has given us much useful inspiration. First, there must be genuine attention. Throughout the market-based operation of environmental sanitation and cleaning, the county went from initial investigation and research, study visits, and finding a path to determining the model, centralized cleanup, and establishing rules and regulations, and set up a leading group to advance the work, with the county's main leaders conducting regular coordination, achieving a daily reporting system level by level from county to township (town) to village. Second, there must be extensive publicity. Give full play to the guiding role of news media and public opinion, vigorously publicize advanced models, and promptly expose existing problems. Third, funds must be pooled. As a county with financial difficulties, facing enormous funding pressure, Lulong County adopted the model of “seek a little from higher levels, invest a little from the finance department, and have the masses pay a little,” raising funds through multiple channels and maximizing the benefits of the funds. Fourth, there must be courage to break through. In order to find an operation model suited to Lulong's realities, county leaders, by going out, learned experience and chose the right path, actively sought suitable cleaning companies to enter the Lulong market, boldly implemented market-based operation of rural environmental sanitation, and broke the “government takes care of everything” pattern. Through the exploration and practice of market-based rural environmental sanitation by “going out and inviting in,” Lulong County has proven that taking the path of market-based management for long-term rural environmental sanitation and cleaning is currently an effective way to achieve long-term treatment of rural pollutants, and that market-based operation of environmental sanitation will play a positive role in improving and enhancing the living environment and advancing the construction of beautiful villages.