On October 24, 2017, the General Office of the Ministry of Environmental Protection ("MEP") distributed the Reply of Opinions on the Category-based Administration of Environmental Impact Assessment for Construction Projects of Enterprises Specialized in Laundry Services for Hotels, Restaurants and Medical Institutions (the "Reply").
The Reply states that the service sector, where some enterprises are specialized in offering laundry services to hotels, restaurants and medical institutions, in a few places has been developed to a certain scale. They construct an increasing number of production plants or lease houses used for industrial purposes and build professionalized workshops for washing, drying and folding up clothes, thus consuming a huge amount of water and discharging too much sewage that relates to major pollution factors, such as the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5) and Suspended Solids (SS). According to the provisions set forth in Article 6 of the Category-based Administration Catalogue for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Construction Projects ("Catalogue"), it is agreed to bring projects involving laundry services offered to hotels, restaurants and medical institutions under the administration by environmental impact registration forms. Where these projects involve the utilization and disposal of medical wastes, treatment of industrial sewage, etc., their category of environmental impact assessment should be determined according to the relevant provisions of the Catalogue.
