In October 2012, students and middle class people have joined the poor peasants to protest against the construction of a petrochemical complex of 8.8 billion in Ningbo, a city of 3.4 million people south of Shanghai . In a country where environmental pollution has reached almost unprecedented levels, these protests were triggered by the fear that the plant, which is to be built by the state company Sinopec petrochemical energy with government support, would produce paraxylene, a toxic substance used in plastics, paints and cleaning solvents.