The General Office of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently issued the Water Pollutant Discharge Standard for the Fermented Alcohol and Alcoholic Drinks Manufacturing Industries (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek opinions from the entities concerned by September 26, 2019.
Compared with the previous version, the Draft for Comment highlights amendments as below. First, water pollutant discharge control requirements for manufacturing industries for wine-related products, such as fermented alcohol, Chinese liquor, beer, wine, yellow rice wine and alcoholic drinks, are included in the new standard, and the new standard is renamed Water Pollutant Discharge Standard for the Fermented Alcohol and Alcoholic Drinks Manufacturing Industries. Second, the total nitrogen indicator is added into the water pollutant discharge control requirements for the beer manufacturing industry. Third, the indicator measuring the amount of pollutants discharged for per unit of products, one of the indicators specified in the previous version (GB 19821-2005), is removed, and a new indicator that measures the benchmark water discharge for per unit of products is introduced. Fourth, provisions concerning upper limits on special pollutant discharge set out in the Standard GB27631-2011 are removed. Fifth, the way in which products are categorized for the purpose of measuring the benchmark water discharge for per unit of products is optimized. Sixth, pollutant discharge control requirements for some types of water pollutants are heightened. And last, the upper limits for indirect discharge of water pollutants are improved.