Straits Times 12 Jun 09;
City's 13 landfill sites expected to be full in four years' time, say officials
BEIJING: - The Chinese capital faces a 'garbage crisis' as an increasing volume of rubbish threatens to overwhelm the city's existing landfills, officials said.
Waste produced in Beijing is growing at 8 per cent a year and is expected to exceed the capacity of the city's 13 landfill sites within four years, municipal government officials were quoted as saying on Wednesday.
They warned of a 'garbage crisis' if the situation is not checked, noting that two of Beijing's dumps are already full and will soon close.
'If we don't reduce our garbage, or build more waste management facilities, within four years Beijing will run out of space for garbage disposal. The situation is very dire,' said Mr Wei Panming, an official of the municipal government's facilities section.
The 18,000 tonnes of trash thrown out by residents every day already go far beyond the 11,000 tonne capacity of all the garbage disposal plants combined, said Mr Guo Weidong, a publicity division head of the government.
He said the authorities were working on laws and penalties to cut down garbage production and have stepped up construction of new landfill sites.
The nose-wrinkling problem also looms over other large and growing cities such as Shanghai and Chongqing, and the issue is an increasing worry for the nation's planners amid fears over pollution and water supplies.
Shanghai's Changshengqiao sanitary landfill plant, for example, is expected to be full in 15 years, about two years ahead of schedule, officials said.
The amount of garbage the city generated in 2007 was five times the size of the 421m Jinmao Tower, the tallest building in China.
Professor Nie Yongfeng, of Qinghua University's College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, said developed countries deal with the problem by incineration, but the method is not used in Beijing for fear of the pollution it generates.
He added: 'If waste incineration is not applied immediately, garbage disposal will become a huge problem in the near future.'
Some commentators have warned that Beijing could confront a 'waste disposal state of emergency' like Naples.
Mountains of rotting trash have become a common sight in the streets of the southern Italian city because the region has run out of places to house it.
Not that Beijing residents are unaware of the gravity of such a scenario.
In 1983, some 5,000 piles of trash were left in the open around the capital because there were not enough disposal facilities.
The problem is more pressing this time because Beijing's population has grown steadily since to 17 million, creating in tandem an even bigger stinker.
Yet the people are raising increasingly vocal objections to the construction of garbage-related facilities in their already crowded cities.
In March, the national environment agency called off the construction of a controversial waste-fuel power plant in Beijing because nearby residents were worried it would pollute water aquifers.
A month later, hundreds of Shanghai residents marched to protest against the expansion of a garbage incineration plant.
There is at least one bright spot in the problem though.
Last year, the central government banned the distribution of free plastic bags at supermarkets throughout the nation and this has reduced polythene waste by at least 65 per cent, according to Mr Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission.
CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, XINHUA
