Law Barriers to Systematic Governance of New Pollutants in China and the Path to Improvement

New pollutants are forms of pollution arising in a specific social context, which have special characteristics that distinguish them from conventional pollutants, exerting more insidious hazards. Traditional approaches to pollution control, based on source control and end-of-pipe treatment, are unable to cope efficiently with the characteristics of new pollutants. Moreover, the fragmentation of management functions and institutional mechanisms in administrative regulation are unable to cope with new pollutant management. Nowadays, China's new pollutant management should implement the concept of systematic regulation, grasp the holistic characteristics of new pollutant management, establish comprehensive administrative policies for new pollutant management, build a lifecycle risk control system, and establish comprehensive supervision chain. The governance of new pollutants can be improved through the establishment of information communication platform and synergistic multi-subject administration mechanism.