[Chinese Mainland] The Ministry of Ecology and Environment reviewed and approved two action plans for water-related initiatives: Industrial Parks and County-Level Black Odorous Water Bodies Designated as New Battlegrounds

Core Summary: 2026年9月23日, Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu chaired an executive meeting of the Ministry, at which two water-sector action plans — the Action Plan for the Tackling Campaign on Water Pollution Remediation in Industrial Parks and the Action Plan for the Tackling Campaign on Black-Odor Water Body Treatment in County Towns — were deliberated and approved in principle. Also approved at the same meeting were the Action Plan for Noise Pollution Prevention and Control during the "15th Five-Year Plan" Period and two ecological environment signage standards. This is the highest-level deployment in the field of water pollution prevention and control in the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," with industrial parks and county towns named simultaneously as the two major battlegrounds.

I. One Ministry Executive Meeting, Three Action Plans Approved on the Same Day

2026年9月23日, Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu chaired an executive meeting of the Ministry, at which three action plans were deliberated and approved in principle: the Action Plan for the Tackling Campaign on Black-Odor Water Body Treatment in County Towns, the Action Plan for the Tackling Campaign on Water Pollution Remediation in Industrial Parks, and the Action Plan for Noise Pollution Prevention and Control during the "15th Five-Year Plan" Period.

The same meeting also deliberated and approved two ecological environment signage standards — Ecological Environment Signage: Discharge Outlets (Sources) and Ecological Environment Signage: Solid Waste Storage (Disposal) Facilities. These two signage standards may appear to be mere "signage specifications," but in reality they incorporate two of the most easily overlooked links — discharge outlets and solid waste storage facilities — into a unified, identifiable, and verifiable visual and information management framework, providing a handle for subsequent law enforcement and public oversight.

From a timeline perspective, this is not an isolated action. Just two days earlier, on 9月21日, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation, issued the Notice on Continuously Strengthening the Supervision of Ecological and Environmental Technical Service Institutions and Deepening the Rectification of Fraudulent Practices, targeting falsification of environmental monitoring data. Viewed together, the policy direction is quite clear: on one hand, grasp the goals and tasks of the tackling campaign; on the other hand, grasp the foundation of data authenticity.

II. Why Industrial Parks? — From "a Single Plant" to "a Whole Network"

The reason industrial parks are singled out as a tackling target lies in a fundamental change in the logic of industrial wastewater treatment.

In the past, when discussing water pollution in industrial parks, attention focused on the park's wastewater treatment plant itself: how large its capacity is, what process it uses, and what standards its effluent meets. But this "plant-centered" approach is becoming ineffective — how enterprises discharge water, how different wastewaters are collected, how treated water returns to the production system, and where the concentrate ultimately goes: if any of these links fails, the actual operational performance of the wastewater treatment plant will be greatly compromised.

A typical example is the Zhongjie Industrial Park Petrochemical Industrial Park Wastewater Treatment and Reclaimed Water Reuse Franchise Project won by 2026年9月3日 Energy Guozhen, as announced in its bid: total investment of approximately 2.64亿 yuan, BOOT model, franchise period of 30年. More noteworthy than the amount is the boundary of the procurement list — in addition to 1万 cubic meters per day of wastewater treatment and 0.5万 cubic meters of reclaimed water reuse, it also includes four types of pipelines: ordinary wastewater, high-concentration wastewater, reclaimed water, and concentrated brine discharge. The project boundary has already extended to both ends of the wastewater treatment plant.

Similar shifts are emerging in different parks in different ways:

• Taixing Economic Development Zone — the park already has **117 enterprises** connected to the wastewater treatment plant, achieving source traceability through "one enterprise, one pipe," and building a "source—network—plant—river" system
• Hami Baishihu Industrial Park — 2026年 has entered the final stage of construction, with a dedicated collection pipeline network covering enterprises in the park planned in parallel; enterprises pre-treat before connecting to the main pipeline network
• Wulongkou, Ruian, Longyou — have begun allowing reclaimed water to re-enter the production system
• Ningdong and other parks — uniformly manage water quantity, water quality, and operations through digital platforms

These projects differ in scale, industry, and business model, yet they all point to one change: industrial park water services are shifting from "the business of a single wastewater treatment plant" to "the business of an entire park water cycle." By listing industrial parks separately, the action plan essentially aims to upgrade this complete chain of "one enterprise, one pipe, classified collection, centralized advanced treatment, and terminal ecological buffering" from scattered local explorations into a nationwide, assessable hard task.

III. Why County Towns? — The Final Stretch of Black-Odor Water Body Treatment

After multiple rounds of tackling campaigns, the treatment of black-odor water bodies in urban built-up areas has largely consolidated its results; the real difficulty lies in county towns. Lagging construction of sewage collection networks in county towns, incomplete separation of rainwater and sewage, low operating load rates of treatment facilities, and insufficient operation and maintenance funding and professional capacity — the superposition of these problems makes the risk of water bodies in county towns returning to black and odor significantly higher than in large cities.

It is worth noting that the "Action Plan for the Protection and Governance of Water Bodies Around the People" issued by the 2026年6月 State Council has already proposed strengthening the monitoring of agricultural irrigation water bodies, water bodies mainly sourced from reclaimed water, and water bodies in karst landform areas in light of actual conditions. The introduction of the county-level black and odorous water body tackling action plan means advancing "water around the people" from monitoring requirements to governance tasks, forming a closed loop of "monitoring—governance—assessment."

IV. Policy Stacking: The Industry Is in a Period of Intensive Fulfillment of Multiple Standards

Broadening the perspective, the wastewater treatment industry is in a rare period of policy stacking in recent years:

• 2026年3月1日—The amendment to the Discharge Standard of Pollutants for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (GB 18918—2002) came into effect, adding **4 instantaneous values** for Chemical Oxygen Demand, ammonia nitrogen, Total Nitrogen, and Total Phosphorus, with pH, color, and fecal coliform count changed to instantaneous value determination
• 2026年8月15日—The Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China was officially implemented, incorporating water pollution prevention and control into the codified system and proposing full life-cycle closed-loop control of pollution sources
• 2026年9月23日—Two water sector tackling action plans were reviewed and approved

The tightening of standards, the implementation of the code, and the successive arrival of tackling actions—the direct result of these three stacking together is: the granularity of compliance has been refined from "daily average compliance" to "instantaneous compliance," and the boundary of governance has expanded from "inside the plant fence" to "one network across the industrial park."

V. Three Judgments for Enterprises and Operators

First, the incremental growth on the industrial park side lies "outside the plant." Classified collection pipe networks, concentrated brine disposal, reclaimed water reuse pipe networks, online monitoring, and quality-based metering—these formerly regarded as supporting elements—are becoming independent procurement packages. Suppliers with integrated delivery capabilities covering "source classification—pipe network conveyance—advanced treatment—reclaimed reuse" will clearly benefit.

Second, the opportunity on the county side lies in "pipe networks + O&M." The shortcomings of county-level projects often lie not in treatment processes, but in collection systems and long-term O&M. Whoever can provide low-cost, easy-to-maintain collection and smart O&M solutions will be able to build barriers in the county market.

Third, data authenticity has become a hard constraint. With the advancement of regulatory rectification of ecological environment technical service institutions, the traceability of third-party monitoring, O&M, and ledger records has been elevated to an unprecedented height. When selecting technical service partners, enterprises and industrial parks should make data compliance capability their primary screening criterion.

From "end-of-pipe compliance" to "full-chain circulation," the direction of policy is already very clear. For enterprises in the fields of industrial water treatment and water resource reuse, the real watershed lies not in whether water can be treated to meet standards, but in whether water can be circulated within the system and whether the destination of every ton of water can be clearly accounted for.

About TIANYI TECH

Hong Kong TIANYI Technology Limited (TIANYI LIMITED) focuses on industrial water treatment and water resource reuse. Centered on three core products—Industrial Wastewater Treatment AI Agent, Industrial Water Reuse Optimization System, and Industrial Water System Digital Twin—it provides enterprises with full-chain services from water quality diagnosis and process optimization to intelligent operations, helping customers improve water reuse rates and reduce operating costs.

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