A view of the cleaned up former tailings pond in Baotou. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A formerly tainted tailings pond is now an important environmental protection measure for the Baogang Group – the steel giant located in Baotou city, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – in a change symbolizing the remarkable greening of the region.

In recent years, the group has continued to strengthen environmental measures at its tailings pond.

It has acted to transform it into a urban wetland, applying environmental regulation, mineral resource protection, water resource recycling and restoring the surrounding ecological system and environment.

Beginning in 2011, the group introduced new technology to restore the vegetation on the nearby dam body and laid water spray pipelines on the periphery to implement irrigation for greening.

A technician from Baogang Greening Company said that Baogang's greening workers had now mastered the ecological and environment management technology, which can make vegetation on a complex terrain grow better and healthier.

After several years of unremitting efforts, a protective forest belt with more than 59,000 trees and 700,000 square meters of vegetation has been formed around the dam body.

In addition, technicians used dry beach dust suppression technology at the dam. Due to the change of seasons, the evaporation of water in the dam can create dry, dusty shorelines. The group cooperated with specialists to use spraying technology to suppress the dust.

As a result, the water quality of the wetland is said to have continuously improved and the water in the tailings pond has cleared. After testing, the salt content of the pond is understood to have shown a significant downward trend year by year.