GB 4287-2026Discharge standard of water pollutants for textile industry (English PDF)

Foreword

This document was issued on 27 June 2026 by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Standardization Administration of the PRC, and takes effect on 1 September 2026.

It replaces four standards at once: GB 4287-2012, GB 28936-2012, GB 28937-2012 and GB 28938-2012, all of which are superseded.

The department in charge of the standard is the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. It is classified under ICS 13.060.30 (sewage) and Chinese classification Z.

It is a GB standard without the /T suffix: compliance is mandatory in China.

1 Scope

GB 4287 governs what a textile mill in China is allowed to put into water. It sets the discharge control requirements for water pollutants from the sector, the monitoring requirements that demonstrate compliance, the rules for how a wastewater discharge outlet must be built and identified, and the implementation and supervision arrangements that apply to enforcement. It reaches existing discharging units and new ones, centralised treatment facilities receiving textile effluent, and the environmental assessment of new construction projects in the industry. The 2026 edition is a consolidation as much as a revision: it replaces GB 4287-2012 and, with it, the three separate 2012 standards that had covered dyeing and finishing sub-sectors, so a mill that until now tracked four documents is held to one. For foreign brands auditing a Chinese textile supply chain, this is the document their environmental clauses should now reference.

2 Normative references

Clause 2 lists the documents that GB 4287-2026 refers to normatively: their requirements apply through the citation, so a copy in force is needed alongside this standard.

The standards cited are: GB 15562.1, GB/T 4754-2017, GB/T 7467, GB/T 11889, GB/T 11893, GB/T 11901, GB/T 18916.4-2022, GB/T 18916.14-2023, GB/T 18916.20-2016, GB/T 18916.21-2016, GB/T 18916.24-2016, HJ/T 70, HJ 91.1, HJ 195, HJ 199, HJ 200, HJ/T 399, HJ 493, HJ 494, HJ 495, HJ 505, HJ 535, HJ 536, HJ 551, HJ 636, HJ 637, HJ 665, HJ 666, HJ 667, HJ 668, HJ 670, HJ 671, HJ 694, HJ 700, HJ 824, HJ 828, HJ 879, HJ 908, HJ 1047, HJ 1069, HJ 1147, HJ 1182, HJ 1214, HJ 1226, HJ 1297, HJ 1405, HJ 1448, HJ 1449, HJ 1450, HJ 1470.

3 Terms and definitions

Clause 3 defines 13 terms used throughout the document:

3.1 Textile industry; 3.2 Wool weaving; 3.3 Linen weaving; 3.4 Silk weaving; 3.5 Chemical fiber weaving; 3.6 Industrial textile products manufacturing; 3.7 Dyeing, printing and finishing; 3.8 Existing pollutant discharging unit; 3.9 New pollutant discharging unit; 3.10 Direct discharge; 3.11 Indirect discharge; 3.12 Centralized wastewater treatment facilities; 3.13 Centralized municipal wastewater treatment facilities.