Yangtze's toxic mix a threat to millions, Greenpeace warns

The mainland has yet to live up to its international commitment to tackle toxic chemicals contaminating the Yangtze River that pose enormous health risks to tens of millions of people, Greenpeace says. The international environmental group also issued a grim warning at the launch of a new report on pollution of the Yangtze, the country's longest river, saying that a lack of regulation and lax control of polluting industries had made mainlanders more vulnerable to hazardous chemicals. 'China is facing a much more imperative threat from many hazardous chemicals because industrial countries have taken steps to tighten their control and limit their production and use of the chemicals while China has not,' Greenpeace China campaigner Wu Yixiu said. The study said hazardous chemicals were widely found in wild fish caught in four cities along the river: Chongqing , Wuhan , Nanjing and Maanshan . Apart from high concentrations of heavy metals, such as lead and cancer-causing cadmium and mercury, relatively unknown chemicals such as alkylphenols and perfluorinated compounds were also found in most of the fish samples. Samples of catfish and carp, two commonly consumed fish taken from the Yangtze, were sent to a laboratory at Britain's Exeter University for testing. 'The contamination of wild river fish is a highly troubling indicator of the polluted state of the Yangtze as a whole,' Wu said. 'What's even more frightening is that these chemicals take decades to break down and will accumulate in human bodies and other living species.' Perfluorinated compounds, such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), are widely used in food packaging and textiles, as well as in cosmetics and plastic products. The manufacture and use of PFOS is prohibited in the United States and Canada and its use has been restricted in the European Union since 2008, but the chemical is not subject to any existing law or regulation on the mainland, according to the report, released on Wednesday. It said a 2006 study based on an analysis of blood samples from 85 people across the mainland showed PFOS levels were higher in China than in the US, Japan or South Korea. Even more worrying, Chinese infants and toddlers had been found to be affected by PFOS through food and milk products, another study showed recently. Hu Jianying , a Peking University environmental science professor, said that even though the chemicals highlighted in the Greenpeace report were relatively unknown to the public, they posed long-term risks to humans and the entire ecological system. 'People may not succumb to diseases immediately because of these chemicals compared to toxic heavy metals, but they can accumulate in the food chain and human bodies and interfere with reproduction systems,' she said. The Greenpeace report also noted that the chemicals could mimic hormones, cause altered sexual development in some species and be associated with altered thyroid function and decreased sperm count in humans. Analysts said the Greenpeace report reinforced growing concerns about the worsening pollution in the Yangtze River, which some said was turning cancerous. The river helps feed hundreds of millions of people, but also absorbs more than 40 per cent of the mainland's total waste water, mostly untreated. The Ministry of Environmental Protection says it has also been plagued by an overconcentration of chemical plants. PFOS was added last year to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty calling for such chemicals to be phased out. The amendments to the treaty, to which China is a contracting party, took effect on Thursday. Greenpeace expressed grave concerns about the fast expansion of the use of the chemicals on the mainland, along with the rapid industrialisation. Although PFOS is still allowed to be used in textile finishes, firefighting foam and the manufacture of semiconductors in the EU and some other countries, its use has fallen sharply around the world as a result of restrictions enacted in the past decade. However, the mainland's PFOS production quadrupled from 2004 to 2006. 'This trend means that wildlife and people will be increasingly exposed to these hazardous chemicals, especially if China does not immediately put a stop to their use and discharge,' Wu said. 'Greenpeace urges that the Chinese government take immediate action to issue specific regulations, tighten its environmental standards and ultimately eliminate the manufacture and use of hazardous chemicals, including those found in this study, while replacing them with safer alternatives.' Hu said the report was an encouraging step in exerting public pressure on the government, which should have done more to rein in rampant industrial pollution and deliver on its environmental protection pledges.