China's per capita water resources are significantly below the world average, with extremely uneven spatial and temporal distribution, making water conservation an absolute priority. Not long ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the list of pilot projects for industrial wastewater recycling in 2022, with 29 enterprises and 3 parks included. Selecting a group of enterprises with outstanding wastewater recycling performance and advanced water efficiency indicators as benchmark cases will help drive broader industrial water efficiency improvements, achieving new breakthroughs in water conservation and pollution reduction.

As the world's largest industrial country, China is faced with the arduous task of treating industrial wastewater. Data shows that in 2021, industrial water use accounted for 17.7% of the country's total water consumption, while industrial wastewater discharge made up about a quarter of national sewage emissions. Concurrently, water scarcity has become a rigid constraint on socioeconomic development, with annual water shortages exceeding 50 billion cubic meters in normal years. On the one hand, there is a continuously high demand for industrial water; on the other hand, China has a basic national condition of large population but limited water resources. Thus, accelerating the resource utilization of industrial wastewater and turning wastewater into "treasure" has become a key to promoting green industrial development and alleviating the contradiction between water supply and demand.

China's industrial landscape is diverse, with vast numbers of enterprises of yet varying scales, infrastructure, and technical capabilities. Industrial wastewater characteristics differ significantly across sectors like petrochemicals, steel, food, textile/dyeing, and papermaking, making a one-size-fits-all solution unfeasible. Thus, a categorized and coordinated approach is essential to promote industrial wastewater recycling. What needs to be treated is not only industrial wastewater but also industrial raw materials, intermediate products, and pollutants lost with water during production. In practice, different industries have formed models with different focuses. In the textile industry, technological breakthroughs can not only reduce wastewater discharge but also degrade organic pollutants in it; in the chemical industry, intelligent supervision enables real-time monitoring of wastewater discharge to achieve effective and precise pollution control; in the steel industry, treated urban sewage is reused in the production process, improving the reuse rate of water resources... After years of efforts, China has made positive progress in industrial wastewater recycling. The reuse rate of industrial water in large-scale enterprises has increased from 89% in 2015 to 92.9% in 2021, and the water consumption per RMB 10,000 of industrial added value in 2020 decreased by 39.6% compared with 2015.

It must be recognized that maintaining stable economic growth requires sustaining a certain level of industrial expansion, which means China's industrial water consumption will continue to rise in the coming period. At present, the water reuse rate in large-scale industries remains relatively high, yet there is still room for improvement. In major water-consuming industries such as textiles and food, the industrial water reuse rate in 2020 was only 73% and 60% respectively. To further improve the level of industrial wastewater recycling, it is necessary to overcome tough challenges. On one hand, efforts must continue to focus on key water-consuming industries by strengthening technological foundations—achieving breakthroughs in core technologies while accelerating the development of universal standards and techniques—to create more replicable and scalable solutions. On the other hand, it is imperative to consistently reduce the costs of industrial wastewater recycling by implementing preferential tax policies, enhancing financial support, and boosting corporate participation.

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stated: "Promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is a key link in achieving high-quality development." Accelerating the advancement of industrial wastewater recycling is an inherent requirement for facilitating comprehensive green transformation of the economy and society. Currently, relevant departments have introduced implementation plans for industrial wastewater recycling, outlining clear timelines and roadmaps. By focusing on key water-consuming industries, giving play to the leading role of demonstrations, implementing tailored policies, advancing step by step, further elevating industrial water reuse rates, and reducing wastewater discharge, we will surely accelerate the formation of a new pattern of efficient industrial wastewater recycling to make green a distinctive feature of high-quality development.

Source: People's Daily

BGT boasts a leading enterprise in the field of industrial wastewater recycling. Since its establishment, it has undertaken hundreds of comprehensive water treatment projects such as industrial wastewater recycling, with numerous typical benchmark ones. This is not only due to its consistent adherence to the field of industrial wastewater resource utilization, but also the result of its emphasis on R&D and technological innovation. At present, the recovery rate of municipal sewage and wastewater in some industrial fields can reach more than 99%. At the same time, precious metals, inorganic salts, etc. in wastewater can be recycled and reused. BGT recycles 2 billion tons of wastewater every year and recovers more than 700,000 tons of industrial first-class salt from sewage, making outstanding contributions to the development of China's industrial sewage resource utilization and environmental protection cause.