Environmental groups fighting pollution in China got a big boost when a court imposed the country’s biggest environmental fine from public interest litigation against a corporate polluter. On Tuesday Jiangsu provincial high court ordered six unnamed companies to pay a total of Rmb160m ($26m) for emitting waste chemicals into rivers, according to the state news agency. Xinhua reported that the Taizhou City Environmental Protection Association, a public interest group, had brought the suit against the chemical and pharmaceutical companies. The court ordered the polluters to pay the money into an environmental protection fund within 30 days. Several officials of the companies had been sentenced to prison in a criminal ruling in August. Ma Tianjie, Greenpeace East Asia’s programme director for mainland China, said: “This case sets important precedents for environmental governance in China.” “First, “polluters pay’ is no longer just a principle written on paper, and second, that NGOs […]