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The "People's Comment" column on the Opinion channel of People's Daily Online recently published an in-depth report titled "Converting 'Wasteland' into Arable Land — Exploring a New Path for Ecological Governance," focusing on the paper "Research on Steel Slag Desulfurization and Comprehensive Treatment of Saline-Alkali Land Based on the Circular Economy Concept" by Shi Hanxiang, Chairman of Ningbo Taiji Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd., published in the international academic journal Microchemical Journal.

As reported by Science and Technology Daily, the international academic journal Microchemical Journal recently published a paper titled "Research on Steel Slag Desulfurization and Comprehensive Treatment of Saline-Alkali Land Based on the Circular Economy Concept." The paper proposes an ecological restoration model of "solid waste utilization — waste gas treatment — by-product reclamation of desert land," exploring a new path for China's steel slag valorization and ecological treatment. This circular economy chain has so far been piloted at the Baogang Qinghua desulfurization project in Inner Mongolia and in a systematic comprehensive saline-alkali land treatment project.

The comprehensive reclamation and utilization of saline-alkali land is an important aspect of cultivated land protection and improvement. In recent years, China has coordinated protection and development and leveraged the key role of scientific and technological innovation, achieving notable results in saline-alkali land treatment. Idle mining areas, saline-alkali land, sandy land, deserts, and gobi — these non-traditional cultivated land resources are attracting the attention of agricultural enterprises and researchers, who are exploring various scientific methods to put them to productive use. The Microchemical Journal paper uses the Baogang Qinghua desulfurization project in Inner Mongolia as a case, describing the process flow, implementation plan, treatment outcomes, and risk assessment, and quantitatively evaluating the project's economic and environmental benefits. Since 2015, first author Shi Hanxiang has led the research team, through technological innovation, to process the spent steel slag and fly ash that absorbed sulfur dioxide after desulfurization into a soil amendment, used to reclaim deserts and saline-alkali land. While saving energy, reducing emissions, and restoring the environment, this model is expected to add new available land resources.

Ensuring food security is an unavoidable priority for a country of more than 1.4 billion people, and cultivated land is one of the core elements in achieving this goal. At present, industrial solid waste — represented by steel slag, power plant fly ash, and non-ferrous metal slag — has become a severe challenge to the global ecological environment. Through appropriate technological treatment and infrastructure, land originally unsuitable for agricultural production can be made arable, helping to overcome the natural constraint of scarce conventional cultivated land and expand the space available for food security.

To foster a sound innovation ecosystem and promote the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, an "industry — discipline — R&D — capital" innovation environment should be actively built. Drawing on national and provincial key laboratories, incubation platforms, and science and technology innovation platforms, a phased concept-verification mechanism should be implemented to reduce anticipated risks, improve the feasibility of innovative technologies, demonstrate the value of industrial achievements, attract market investment, and encourage green agricultural enterprises to engage in scientific and technological innovation.