Bank Funds China Mercury Removal

The Asian Development Bank will lend $100 million to China to help local chemical producers reduce harmful emissions and end the use of mercury as a catalyst. Under the United Nations’ Minamata Convention on Mercury, China has pledged to stop using the metal to make a polyvinyl chloride feedstock once an alternative process proves successful. ADB’s funding, supplemented by an $81 million loan from China Construction Bank, will set up a mercury-free process at Dezhou Shihua Chemical in Shandong province. Another project will improve energy efficiency and reduce hydrofluorocarbon-23 emissions at a fluoropolymer company in Sichuan province.