Published by ChinaMNC · Qingtian

Lishui Dust Pollution Prevention Rules: What Foreign Founders Building in Zhejiang Need to Know

Lishui's local dust pollution regulation sets out who is responsible for dust control across construction, transport, materials handling and green space work, how inspections and penalties work, and what foreign-invested companies operating projects in the city must plan for.

Why a Dust Control Rule Matters to Foreign Investors

Companies setting up or running operations in Lishui, Zhejiang, may encounter a local regulation that governs dust pollution from construction, demolition, material transport and storage, street cleaning, landscaping, mining and mineral processing, and exposed land inside the urban built-up area. The rules were adopted by the Lishui People's Congress Standing Committee in November 2021, approved by the Zhejiang provincial legislature in December 2021, and later amended under a package decision on local regulations approved in September 2026.

For a foreign founder registering a company in China, the practical point is that environmental compliance at the local level is often assigned to specific departments and tied to specific project activities. If your entity builds, renovates, transports materials, operates a yard, or manages property, this regulation defines who must act and who inspects.

What Counts as Dust Pollution

The regulation defines dust pollution as particulate matter released into the air from activities including:

• Construction work
• Demolition of buildings or structures
• Transport and stockpiling of materials
• Cleaning of public places and urban roads
• Landscaping work
• Exploitation and processing of mineral resources
• Exposed land within the urban built-up area

The stated purposes are preventing and controlling dust pollution, improving air quality, protecting public health and ecological rights, and advancing ecological civilization, consistent with the national ecological environment code and Zhejiang's air pollution rules.

Who Does What: A Department Map for Project Planning

The regulation assigns duties across several authorities. Foreign investors preparing a project should identify the correct counterpart early, because enforcement and approvals sit with different bodies.

Environmental authority

The ecology and environment department exercises unified supervision, coordinates other departments, and directly oversees dust control at stone and other mineral processing operations and industrial material yards.

Housing and construction authority

This department oversees dust control at building and ancillary facility construction, municipal infrastructure, urban landscaping, and disposal sites for construction waste such as engineering spoil.

Transport and port authority

It supervises dust control in road construction and transport, port terminals, and road freight stations where materials are stored and handled.

Traffic police

The public security traffic management department sets routes and permitted times for vehicles carrying dust-generating materials — construction waste, spoil, sand and gravel, earth, cement, coal, ready-mixed concrete and ready-mixed mortar — within prohibited or restricted zones and road sections.

Natural resources, housing and expropriation bodies

These bodies, within their own duties, supervise dust control during building demolition, including the department designated by city or county governments to implement housing expropriation.

City and county governments are responsible for dust control in their areas, prepare work plans, and establish coordination, long-term management, information-sharing and responsibility assessment mechanisms. Township governments and subdistrict offices must stop violations they find and report them to the responsible department.

Inspection, Complaints and Cooperation

Departments with supervision duties must maintain routine inspection systems and strengthen on-site checks. The ecology and environment department organizes joint enforcement with other departments. Companies and individuals under inspection must cooperate, report facts truthfully and provide requested materials; refusing or obstructing inspectors is not permitted.

Any unit or individual may dissuade or report dust violations through government service platforms or the 12345 hotline. Departments must handle reports promptly, inform the reporter of the outcome, and keep the reporter's identity confidential.

Construction Site Obligations

The construction unit must include dust prevention and monitoring costs in the project budget, specify the contractor's dust control responsibilities in the construction contract, and supervise performance. Contractors must establish a responsibility system and publicly display at the site entrance the dust measures, the responsible person, the supervising department and the complaint telephone number.

Where dusty materials must pass through prohibited or restricted areas, the contractor applies to traffic police for the vehicle route and permitted times.

If the supervision contract includes dust control, the supervisor must perform that duty. Where the contractor fails to follow the dust control plan or commits other violations, the supervisor must require immediate correction and, if correction is inadequate or refused, report to the construction unit and the responsible department.

Specific site requirements include hardening entrances, main roads and processing areas, with watering or spraying as a supplement; where hardening is not possible for ecological or farming reasons, other effective measures apply. Vehicle washing facilities, drainage and mud sedimentation facilities must be installed inside the site entrance, vehicles must be clean before leaving, and roads within 50 meters of the entrance must stay clean.

Scaffold boards must be cleared of debris, and residue must be removed or sprayed before dismantling scaffolding, boards and safety netting. Housing construction sites covering more than 5,000 square meters must install dust video monitoring and particulate online monitoring equipment linked to the housing and construction department's systems.

Demolition must use water trucks, fog cannon machines or other spraying equipment meeting dust requirements, following a spray-first, spray-during approach with sufficient water.

For street trees not planted within 48 hours, exposed land not replanted within 48 hours of vegetation removal, and soil or waste not yet removed, covering or watering measures are required.

Transport, Exposed Land and Liability

Vehicles carrying dust-generating materials must comply with the regulation's transport rules. Exposed land in the urban built-up area must be greened, paved with permeable material or covered. Responsibility is allocated by location: property service providers manage residential compounds they serve, owners' committees manage self-managed compounds, and village or residents' committees manage compounds with neither.

Departments must handle complaints and correction orders linked to penalties transferred to comprehensive administrative enforcement, and refer cases needing formal investigation with evidence to that enforcement body.

Failure to take effective dust measures under the construction, demolition, transport and related provisions can lead to a correction order and a fine of RMB 10,000 to RMB 100,000; continued non-compliance can lead to suspension of work. Similar penalties apply to failures under the provision on street tree and green space work, with suspension of work or business as a possible consequence.

Foreign founders should treat these figures and procedures as compliance planning inputs, confirm current requirements with local authorities, and build dust controls into contracts, budgets and site management from the start.

This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.