Managing the Risks of New Pollutants in China: The Perspective of Policy Integration

New pollutants, which have been gaining increasing attention in China in recent years, are largely results of the production, use, and disposal of chemicals that are of great economic value. Managing new pollutants requires a high degree of policy coordination through the life cycle of chemicals and a balanced consideration of multiple social objectives. From the perspective of policy integration, we analyzed the current regulatory regime for managing new pollutants. Major findings include: (1) guiding principles and instruments exist for balancing social, environmental, and economic objectives, which can be used directly or after revision to guide new pollutants management; (2) part of the existing regulations can be used to incorporate new pollutants after revision, while new regulations are badly needed to prevent, minimize, and cleanup new pollutants during the whole process of their production, use, and disposal; and (3) complementary policies such as information-based policies and policies for facilitating research and development are rather weak. Further research and practical efforts should be directed to mainstreaming new pollutants into the existing regulatory regime, developing supplemental policies for managing new pollutants, and designing complementary policies to facilitate the design and implementation of policies for managing new pollutants.