Workers sort waste materials in a recycling plant in China. (Photo : www.china-environmental-news.blogspot.com)
Many cities in China have resorted to various solutions to address the increasingly serious problem of waste disposal, which has beset two-thirds of large and medium-sized cities as one-quarter of the cities have no proper garbage dumping sites, the China Business News reported.
The report said that many cities have invested heavily to manage the disposal of their wastes. According to the report, Ningbo in Zhejiang Province has spent 750 million yuan ($121 million) to build incinerators and burn their garbage that reach 1,500 tons a day. Similarly, Jiangyin in Jiangsu Province has also invested 593 yuan ($95.6 million) to build incinerators to burn 1,200 tons of waste daily.
The report also cited that in Jiangsu City of Changzhou, the government built an incinerator in a residential area due to limited space. The project cost 410 million yuan ($66 million) and burns 800 tons of garbage daily, but the emissions of the plant must be monitored for its potentially harmful effects on residents in the area.
According to the report, residents in the nation's cities have generated a total volume of garbage that reached 170.8 million tons a day in 2012, which is 5.8 times the amount produced in 1979.
The report, however, said that waste disposal in the country is improving, as 93.94 percent of garbage have been properly taken care of in 2012, despite issues on the rate and safety of the process and the lack of information on air and water pollutants from waste processing facilities.
The report added that many cities have not created proper guidelines to monitor waste water and air emissions from incinerators and landfills.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said that the amount of garbage in urban areas has been increasing every year at 9 percent in recent years, rising the per capita trash to 440 kilograms a year, while the growth rate of Beijing and other first-level cities reach 15-20 percent.
The report said that the country had 540 landfills, capable of handling 311,000 tons of garbage a day in 2012, which is 72.6 percent of the total amount of garbage generated in urban areas.
