Lin Yansong, 81, who has worked as an alunite miner since 17 and suffers from silicosis, inhales oxygen at Fanshan Hospital in Fanshan town, East China's Zhejiang, in November 2013.

 

Workers sort alunite next to a weathering pool full of corrosive liquid at an alum factory in Fanshan town in November 2013.

Smoke is discharged from chimneys at an alum factory in Fanshan town in December 2013.

A worker, who usually spends about three hours each day shoveling alum near a crystallizing pond and is paid 50 yuan ($8.26) a day, hits alum at a pond at an alum factory in Fanshan town in November 2013.

Workers frost-boil alunite to dissolve slag at an alum factory in Fanshan town in November 2013.

Workers eat their lunch in an alunite mine in Fanshan town in November 2013. Photo: IC

A notorious Chinese town has been struggling to shed its polluting past and instead become a promising tourist attraction.

Fanshan, a township under the administration of Wenzhou city in East China's Zhejiang Province, is renowned for its mining and production of alum. It has been dubbed the world's capital of alunite, or hydrated aluminium potassium. These deposits exceed 240 million tons, accounting for 60 percent of the reserves in the entire world and 70 percent of those in China.

The town has a history of over 600 years of alunite mining and alum production, dating back to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368 - 1644).

However, reckless and unlicensed mining and production have been a blight upon the small town, because they heavily polluted the environment and drastically affected the health of the local people. There are still hundreds of people, possibly more, suffering from silicosis, a disease of the lungs caused by continued inhalation of siliceous dust - limestone - a condition which is characterized by progressive fibrosis and chronic shortness of breath. This is still occurring despite the fact the local government has spent millions of yuan on pollution control and improvements to the environment in recent years,  according to a 57-year-old miner surnamed Zheng, who has been working in the town for 40 years.

Due to the harm caused by this toxic industry and the closure of local factories, there have been proposals to build an alunite mine park and suggestions that the town should apply for UNESCO "industrial heritage" status to attract tourists, in a similar manner to Germany's Ruhr industrial area, in a bid to transform the devastated old town into a promising attraction to revive the local environment and livelihoods.

Global Times