On August 31, Ziroom was found formaldehyde level in their renting rooms heavily exceeded the standards, infringing the rights and interests of tenants. Alarmed by the death of a renter suffered from Leukemia, the accusation is becoming more and more serious with many other renters discovered that the levels of a potentially carcinogenic chemical are beyond acceptable.

With the acceleration of urbanization in China, the demand for public rental housing is getting increasingly higher. It's renter companies' responsibility to make sure renters' health and environment safety of their rooms. Yet, it's usually too difficult for an individual to safeguard their own environmental rights in cases like this. Causation needs to be proved, which is beyond a family's capability both financially and at time-cost. 

A similar case was the poisonous synthetic playgrounds, a once necessity equipment across China's millions of school campus. Without the equipped running tracks, a school can't pass examination for accreditation. But in the past decade, numerous students were reported sickened collectively in school with symptoms such as dizziness, shortness of breath, nose-bleeding, excessive blood lead level, and eczema, sometimes even death - almost every year. Yet when helpless parents resorted to competent authorities, schools and factories, they were often told the equipment were qualified according to China’s relevant national standards.

This kind of dilemma was not alone. Today the above case is somewhat similar. CBCGDF sued some schools and kindergarten in 2016 to safeguard public environmental interests. In the litigations, we have found a ridiculous situation - the relevant national standards were solely made by running-tracks' manufacturers! The standards' development process lacked public and all-stakeholders' participation.

Highly worried, the CBCGDF is paying close attention to Ziroom’s cases today. China's revised Environmental Protection Law entitled eligible NGOs the right to filed Environmental Public Interest Litigation against polluters and violators.

Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/6138.html

(Photo source: Internet)

By / Linda