Xiao Su used to frown and clamp his nose when gathering his dried clothes from his balcony, under which runs the Shuinan Zhichong River, once a slow moving flow of tar-like sludge, in south China's Xintang Township, Guangzhou Province, known as the world's jeans capital.

'Black river' was seen in??south China's Xintang Township, Guangzhou Province [Greenpeace]

Now he talks about the river with a smile, "I would score it 80 out of 100. But I'd like to see fish swimming in it."

The market value of his home has nearly tripled since the river clean-up began.

Having turned four black rivers green, Xintang is making obvious progress in reducing dye pollution in its rivers despite annually producing 260 million jeans.

More than 100,000 people worked in Xintang's jeans industry that comprised about 3,000 companies in 2010. About 40 percent of all jeans in the United States come from the town.

Rows of bungalows, some of which were jeans workshops, used to hang over the banks of the Shuinan Zhichong. Residents and factories along the banks dumped dye and other waste into it, turning the river into a dark stinky oozing mass.

Now the bungalows are gone and the water is being treated. The river looks clean and trees and shrubs have been planted where the bungalows once were.

The city has spent 800 million yuan in treating the Shuinan Zhichong,Fenghuang, Xipi, and Niushizhen rivers. A large part of the investment was used to compensate those forced to relocate from river banks, said Huang Jianping, head of Xintang's environment protection bureau.

Huang said several water treatment plants with a total daily capacity of more than 400,000 tonnes were treating and monitoring all factory water discharge and 80 percent of household water discharge.

PEOPLE'S POWER PUSHES GOVERNMENT TO ACT

Xie Zhiheng, 50, recalls a time when he could swim and catch fish in the four rivers. But he says it's almost impossible to completely eradicate pollution in the town.

"The jeans industry means too much. So many families are relying on it," Xie said.

Middle-aged and elderly people, mostly women, dot the streets of Xintang's poorer communities. Sitting on stools, they brush jeans changing their color, often just a few meters away from some filthy looking brook or pond covered with floating waste.

On November 11, 2009, Xiao Su, his neighbors and thousands of residents of Helenberg Estate, on the northern bank of the Shuinan Zhichong, took to the streets, demanding a cleaner environment.

Xiao protested with his son. The five-year-old boy signed a petition calling for the closure of polluting factories. "Many neighbors have rhinitis because of the air pollution, I don't want my son to suffer from it," Xiao said.

The residents' demands were listened to, and since then environmental protection has become one of the local government's top priorities. The environmental protection bureau was given the right to veto investment and construction projects, suspend production and even close down polluting businesses, Huang said.

In the past, most people were focused on development and making money. But with improving living standards, people have become more concerned about the environment. "When the majority of people call for a cleaner environment, it becomes a political task," Huang said.

Xiao was overjoyed after he and other residents succeeded in getting the government to clean up the Shuinan Zhichong. Now they talk about how to improve the environment in online forums everyday.

"Many people volunteered to deliver our messages to the government through letters, phone calls and even face-to-face meetings with officials. Those were common methods, and we succeeded with perseverance and good organization, thanks to the Internet."

INDUSTRIAL PARKS HELP BUSINESSES AND PROTECT ENVIRONMENT

Huang has shut down many dyeing plants that failed to meet environmental standards. But closing plants is not sustainable because it hurts the economy and draws the ire of plant owners and workers, she said.

"The best solution is to move the plants into industrial parks," Huang said, because polluted water can be collectively treated in water treatment plants approved and monitored by the local government.

In industrial parks, polluted water is pumped from factories through pipelines into one large water treatment plant. Quality of the treated water is constantly tested and monitored by provincial, city and local environment authorities. About 40 percent of the treated water is recycled.

Of the remaining 76 dying plants in Xintang, 68 have been relocated to industrial parks. The rest will soon be relocated, Huang said.

"We often worried that our plants might be closed or suspended due to pollution. Now, we just leave the issue to the water treatment plant," said Li Zhixiang, head of Nanfang Clothing Ltd's dyeing plant.

Nanfang Clothing is one of the 22 plants that have moved into Xintang's Xinzhou Industrial Park. It pays the water treatment plant about 10 yuan for each cubic meter of polluted water taken.

The water treatment plant has a daily capacity of 100,000 tonnes, which means it can receive more than 1 million yuan in a day, said Zhao Keyin, head of the water treatment plant for Hong Kong-based To Kee Holdings.

Zhao declined to give the plant's financial statistics, only saying that it was a good investment. "It takes only one large investment to gain stable long-term profits."

The dyeing plants are willing to pay reasonable prices because they know how much it costs to get the water up to national standards, he added.

China had 1,993 water treatment plants with a total daily capacity of more than 100 million cubic meters by the end of 2009, according to statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. But the capacity is not enough to treat all of China's polluted water.

The draft of China's 12th five-year plan, which is up for approval from the National People's Congress in early March, also stressed further environmental protection measures to tackle water, air and soil pollution that pose a threat to people's health.

The public are becoming more demanding for improvements in the quality of air, water, food and the look of the environment. The government must work hard to protect the environment for the people, said Zhou Shengxian, China's Minister of Environmental Protection.

"Green development and building a sustainable economy are important global trends. China must restructure its economy and reform its development mode to succeed in the international arena," Zhou said.