Recently, the comprehensive administrative law enforcement team for ecological and environmental protection in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, based on their own law enforcement experience, wrote a work report that deeply analyzed why the facilities of a 4S store in Taiyuan were sealed off.

Pollution prevention and control facilities are virtually non-existent

Under the leadership of the company's staff, law enforcement officers first inspected the company's production wastewater treatment facilities. The production wastewater of this enterprise consists of car washing wastewater, ground washing wastewater, and component cleaning oil-water. The wastewater is separated, coagulated, precipitated, filtered, and catalytic oxidized through the drainage pipeline before being reused. About 30 cars are cleaned daily, generating about 2 tons of wastewater. On site, it was found that the company's wastewater was directly discharged into the urban sewage pipe network, and the sewage treatment facilities were lying in the basement in a dry area. Various types of water tanks were empty, and there was no liquid in the flocculant filling bucket. The valves of the pipes were covered in dust, indicating that they had not been used for a long time. The law enforcement officers attempted to press the start button, but the machine did not respond.

Next, law enforcement officers inspected the pollution prevention and control facilities in the paint spraying and mixing rooms of the enterprise: the activated carbon adsorption box in the matching paint mixing room gently touched the filter cotton and activated carbon partition inside, causing dust to fly randomly. The staff admitted that it has been over a year since inspection and replacement. The catalytic combustion facility for volatile organic compounds (V0C) in the paint spraying room also has the same problem - desorption display is 0, and there are also situations where historical data is incomplete and various operating parameters cannot be viewed.

Seal off relevant facilities

Law enforcement officers require the relevant personnel of the enterprise to open the V0C catalytic combustion facility and start the desorption operation condition. After waiting quietly for over an hour, the temperature of the catalytic combustion chamber reached 149 degrees Celsius and did not rise again. At the same time, the fire water pipeline was not connected to the facility. This operational status makes law enforcement officers unable to help but worry that the pollution prevention and control facilities that companies have invested heavily in upgrading were originally designed to better handle organic waste gas. However, in the case of abnormal use of pollution prevention and control facilities, the organic waste gas generated in the paint spraying room accumulates in the activated carbon bed of the adsorption box. The desorbed state should have been flameless combustion to control the waste gas, but due to insufficient temperature, it has become heated and discharged. Efficient pollution control facilities have become equipment for collecting and discharging pollutants.

Further investigation revealed that the environmental protection manager of the company has been frequently replaced. Since 2019, the manager in charge of environmental protection has been replaced four or five times. The handover of work tasks is unclear, the baseline is unclear, the emphasis on environmental protection work is insufficient, the management is chaotic, and no corresponding environmental responsibility mechanism has been established to clarify the environmental protection responsibilities of employees. The implementation of the main responsibility for environmental protection in the company is virtually non-existent. At the same time, it also reflects the common problems of non key pollutant discharge units - the lack of online monitoring equipment constraints, weak legal awareness, insufficient environmental management capabilities, and the inability of pollution prevention and control facilities to fully play their due role.

In view of the illegal facts of the car sales store, the law enforcement officers of the Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau have lawfully sealed the car washing room of the enterprise and investigated and dealt with its illegal behavior. I also hope that through this case, non key polluting units can be alerted and take on their environmental responsibility, contributing to the victory of the blue sky defense battle in the city.