The recently released "Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law" has attracted great attention from all walks of life. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed at the National Ecological and Environmental Protection Conference held in May this year to let people eat and live with peace of mind. The promulgation of this law is to ensure and realize that the people can eat and live with peace of mind.

The formation of soil is extremely slow. On the human time scale, it can be said to be a non-renewable national strategic resource. It is connected to the water body. Soil pollutants can easily affect the surface water body through surface runoff or affect the groundwater through infiltration methods. Air pollution and water pollution are very different:

One is concealment. The air and water pollution is relatively intuitive and can be felt by the human senses, but soil pollution can only be sensed through sampling and testing of equipment.

The second is hysteresis. Pollutants in the soil will not show up quickly. International experience shows that it will take ten or twenty years to show up.

The third is cumulative, and the accumulation of pollutants over the years has a certain effect. In addition, the causes are also different. In addition to man-made emissions, atmospheric deposition and the high background value of the soil itself will increase the content of toxic and harmful substances in the soil.

Due to the heterogeneity of soil geology and the different characteristics of compound pollutants, it is difficult to accurately identify the range of pollutants. Especially in areas with abundant groundwater, these factors have led to a substantial increase in the cost of complete site restoration. At the same time, due to the adsorption properties of soil, it is extremely difficult to remove and degrade pollutants once they enter. In soil remediation technology, organic pollution remediation methods such as thermal desorption and leaching, although the removal of pollutants are highly efficient, but the cost is also high. For soil pollution with heavy metals, there are still potential risks after leaching, solidification and stabilization techniques are used to repair them. If the concentration of pollutants accumulates to a certain level, it will not only damage the ecosystem of the soil itself, but also flow into the atmosphere and water bodies through volatilization (such as mercury) or soil erosion, further polluting other environments and even endangering human health.

After the "Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law" is promulgated, it is helpful to trace the cost of soil remediation and encourage companies that produce soil pollution or may be at risk of pollution to pay more attention to soil pollution prevention work.

File source: "Environmental Protection Department of Jiangsu Province" "China Environment News"