China shipping delivering toxic pollution cocktail: US environmental group

Beijing

CHINA is waging war on pollution, closing factories and targeting dirty coal-fired power plants, but its ports are pumping out pollution virtually unchecked, according to a report by a US environmental group.

The thousands of ships that ply China's waterways are delivering a toxic cocktail of pollution, with just one ship capable of emitting the same pollution as half a million trucks each day, the report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said. "China is paying a high price for pollution associated with shipping," it said, citing studies in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. "An estimated 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010 were caused by ambient air pollution, and shipping is a significant source of these air pollution and health problems."