A court in China has ordered six companies in Eastern China to pay a fine worth $26 million for disposing waste chemicals into the rivers, causing water pollution.

According to state news agency Xinhua, it was the Jiangsu provincial high court that ordered the six companies to pay CNY160 million Yuan for dumping chemical waste into the rivers.

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They also reported that the lawsuit was brought up by the public interest group, Taizhou City Environmental Protection Association. The group has been against chemical and pharmaceutical companies whose practices are deemed harmful to the environment.

The court found the companies guilty with the evidence that were brought showing they have dumped about 25,000 tons of waste acid down the rivers.

The country is already under a lot of pressure to clean up their polluted environment even before this water pollution issue. China has launched environmental high court major cases earlier in 2014 and they also have been coordinating legal proceedings regarding the matter in their lower courts.

The names of the involved companies were not mentioned, but 14 people got convicted for their involvement in polluting the rivers, resulting in their fines and even imprisonment ranging from two to five years.

The companies involved made an appeal on the August verdict, which led them to these corporate fines that the court finalized on December 29.

The court's decision was seen as a victorious moment for the environmentalists of China and it is also a sign of strict governance against industrial polluters. China said that these offenders are responsible for dumping 70 percent of the waste that are in the country's lakes and rivers.

TagsPollution, water pollution, fines, record fine, waste chemicals