It was September, and an angry mob of 500 villagers were breaking through the chain-link fence of a solar cell factory belonging to Jinko Solar Holding Company, intent on ransacking the premises. A torrential rainfall had flooded the company’s mismanaged vats of toxic waste and carried the contaminated water into a nearby stream in Haining, Zhejiang province. On the day after the deluge, residents in the area reported seeing dead fish floating in the surrounding waters for hundreds of square yards.

The problem was a result of both government ineptitude and corporate inaction. Though the local Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) punished the facility five months before the incident for improperly storing and managing the waste, the factory had continued to operate as usual. Jinko Solar was supposed to have paid a fine of RMB470,000 (US$73,600) and shut down the plant until its waste management system was robust.

But by the time the autumn rains had swept through, the facility had yet to act on any of the injunctions the EPB had set against it. The result was a rampage by angry local citizens that caused thousands of dollars in damage and demoted the “green credentials” of the New York Stock Exchange-listed company.

This is the irony of green- and clean-technology manufacturing in China: Without the proper technology, safety controls and management procedures in place, the manufacturing processes can be terribly polluting. In China’s rush to gain market share and satisfy its voracious appetite for energy, officials and companies have pulled out many safety stops and unhinged production goals from economic fundamentals.

Read the rest of my January 2012 China cleantech column here …