Under Siege

By YIN PUMIN

Under Siege

By YIN PUMIN

Dealing with household garbage has become a growing headache for Chinese cities

A series of photos named Rubbishbesieged City, which won Wang Jiuliang the Golden Award for Excellence at the Lianzhou International Photo Festival 2009, has attracted considerable public attention after being posted on Tianya.cn, a popular Chinese Web forum. The photos document Beijing’s so-called “seventh ring road,” a vast area on the fringes of the city covered with more than 400 landfill sites.

“I want society to realize that we are living in a city surrounded by trash,” said Wang, a 34-year-old freelance photographer.

Starting in October 2008, Wang visited several large rubbish dumps around Beijing and took more than 4,000 photos. Some of the dumpsites cover as much as 10,000 square meters scattered around Beijing’s ffth and sixth ring roads. When Wang marked out their locations in yellow on Google Earth, he was struck by the image of a capital surrounded by trash.

According to statistics from the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration (BMCCA), residents in Beijing produce around 18,000 tons of solid waste every day. In 2010, they generated 6.35 million tons of garbage and the amount is growing at the rate of 8 percent every year.

About 90 percent of household garbage in Beijing ends up in landflls, which occupy more than 1,300 hectares of land and this area is increasing by 33 hectares every year. At this rate, all of Beijing’s current landflls will be full to capacity within four years.

Besides Beijing, cities across China are surrounded by ever expanding garbage dumps.

According to the Shanghai-basedOriental Morning Post, Shanghai now produces 20,000 tons of household garbage a day, and that number is growing rapidly. These volumes of garbage have placed huge pressure on the city’s waste treatment facilities, which can only handle 18,000 tons a day.

HUANG XIAOBANG

Nearly 14,000 tons of waste is now produced each day in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, which has a population of more than 10 million, according to the Guangzhou Commission of Urban Management.

The surging amount of garbage produced in cities due to the country’s rapid urbanization has exceeded treatment capacity, said a statement released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, in April.

Plagued cities

Since China overtook the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage in 2004, the amount of garbage produced by its residents has been rising at a rate of 8-10 percent a year. In 2010, China produced 152 million tons of waste.

The country’s waste treatment facilities, according to the China Association of Environmental Protection Industry (CAEPI), are capable of treating only 112 million tons each year.

About two thirds of China’s 668 major cities are surrounded by garbage sites covering a combined area of 500 million square meters, incurring economic losses of more than 30 billion yuan ($4.39 billion) a year.

“Twenty-nine percent of cities in China lack treatment facilities for household garbage,” said Zhou Shengxian, Minister of Environmental Protection, at a bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, on October 25.

But the CAEPI said, even the alarming figures cited by Zhou might be an underestimate as they didn’t take into account counties and towns, which are typically not well-equipped with treatment facilities.

The picture will be even bleaker in 2015 when about one third of China’s existing landfills will reach their capacity, according to the China International Engineering Consulting Corp.

According to theOriental Morning Post, based on the current treatment capabilities of Shanghai, 11,700 tons of garbage cannot be treated every day by 2020.

“In Guangzhou, the amount of garbage produced already exceeds the treatment capacity of existing landfills and incinerators, posing a great threat to the health of local residents,” said Li Tinggui, Director of the Guangzhou Commission of Urban Management.

It is estimated that China loses as much as 30 billion yuan ($4.73 billion) as the result of poor waste management each year.

In order to enhance the country’s urban garbage treatment, the State Council held two executive meetings, respectively in March and April this year, specifying the need for the establishment of an effective garbage management system.

Steps would be taken to ensure that China possesses the technology to treat 80 percent of the garbage collected from city households by 2015 and 100 percent by 2030, said the State Council.

Local governments are required to set the prices they charge for the treatment of urban garbage by taking into account local average incomes and economic circumstances.

“At present, both citizens and businesses spend very little on garbage treatment,”said Xie Xinyuan, a staff with the Research and Investigation Department of Friends of Nature, a nongovernmental environmental organization in Beijing.

“For instance, in Beijing, every household pays just 3 yuan ($0.44) a month, which is not enough to support the whole process of garbage separation and treatment,” he said.“The charges should vary according to the amount of garbage to be treated. People will then have a reason to reduce the amount of garbage they produce.”

As part of its long-term strategy to deal with the waste issue, China will work to reduce the production of household garbage by encouraging the use of gas and solar energy. It will ask the public to separate garbage into categories, making it easier to recycle. And it will discourage the use of disposable items and excessive amounts of packaging.

The State Council has also pledged policy measures to support the development of domestic garbage treatment technology and equipment. Steps will also be taken to strengthen the training given to sanitation workers.

Investment in the urban waste disposal sector will amount to 180 billion yuan ($26.35 billion) in 2011-15, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

More efforts will be made to add to the current number of treatment plants and tighten the monitoring of the construction and operation of such plants.

Burning waste

Before 2005, landfills were seen as the greenest of the available choices in China. But since 2006, trash-burning power plants have been billed as more environmentally friendly.

“In big cities such as Beijing, there is no way to continue the use of landfills as the main solution,” said Wang Weicheng, Chairman of the Beijing Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Association. “Compared with dumping, burning waste saves 90 percent of land resources.”

In September 2009, a plan was released that called for the construction of nine garbage-burning plants in Beijing. All the proposed plants will be built in suburban areas and form a circle around the capital.

Xu Haiyun, chief engineer of the China Urban Construction Design and Research Institute, said, “There are around 90 wasteto-energy plants in China and I think there will be at least another 80 to 90 in the next fve years.”.

For Xu, incineration is not just an unavoidable choice but a better choice.

“Landflls actually generate more greenhouse gas emissions than incineration plants. And since the garbage is buried in the land, it is more likely to contaminate underground water and the soil,” Xu said.

He attributed the unpopularity of incin-eration in China in the past to high costs. The cost of treating 1 ton of garbage is 10-100 yuan ($1.46-14.64) in landfills, while the cost is well above 100 yuan ($14.64) when incinerators are used.

“But economic growth means China can afford incineration, which is defnitely more environmentally friendly than landflls,” Xu said.

Liu Yangsheng, a professor at the College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering of Peking University, was quoted by thePeople’s Dailyas saying that garbage incineration in China is safe because most of the country’s plants use advanced technology that does not pose a threat to public health.

“Only 8 percent of garbage was incinerated before the end of 2009. And dioxin, the most toxic substance produced by burning garbage, is not a threat as long as it is kept within approved standards,” Liu said.

According to directives issued by the State Council, pollutants discharged from the plants that treat household garbage will also be tested every three months and the dioxin discharged will be tested at least once a year. Dioxin is a dangerous chemical known as a kind of persistent organic pollutant with high toxicity. The results from those tests will be released to the public.

Industry analysts expect the market for the country’s waste incineration sector to reach 240 billion yuan ($35.14 billion) during the next fve years and waste management companies are likely to see a boom in business fueled by more government funding and incentive policies.

Environmentalists and many citizens, however, are opposed to incineration. They argue that hazardous emissions are an inevitable consequence once an incineration plant is put into use.

Zhao Zhangyuan, a retired researcher with the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, said that burning garbage produces many poisonous gases and will cause pollution.

“No matter how advanced the technology of garbage incineration, no one can guarantee dioxin-free emissions,” Zhao said.“Doxin can accumulate in people’s bodies and linger for a long time, increasing the chance of getting cancer. It can hardly be avoided once incineration is chosen as the way to cope with garbage.”

Zhao cited the Likeng Waste Incineration Plant in Guangzhou as an example of the dangers of incineration. He claimed that 200 villagers living near the plant contracted cancer within four years of the plant opening.

“A lot of statistics show that people have a greater risk of contracting cancer when they live near a waste incineration plant,” he said.

The national standard for a safe distance from a waste incineration plant is 300 meters. But the number of people who get cancer within 1,200 meters of an incineration plant is twice the number of people who contract cancer outside that circle, according to Zhao.

“Some experts argue that as long as garbage is burned at between 360 and 850 degrees Celsius, hazardous emissions, including dioxins, can be destroyed within seconds,” he said. “But in practice, it is very diffcult to control the burning temperature.”

Because of opposition from environmentalists and local residents, a number of proposed waste incineration plants in China are on hold.

The Guangzhou Municipal Government had to postpone the construction of an incineration plant in Panyu District last year because of strong opposition from local residents. The overwhelming majority of residents in Panyu District signed a petition opposing the project on health concerns.

In August 2009, Beijing authorities revealed a plan to build a $121-million garbage incineration plant near Xiaotangshan in suburban Changping District, but local residents responded by staging protests.

Huang Xiaoshan, a lawyer-turnedenvironmentalist who owns a villa in the Xiaotangshan resort area, Beijing, attended the protests.

“I’m not speaking against incineration technology. I just don’t believe burning is the correct way to handle garbage in Beijing,”he said.

A study published by theChinese Journal of Environmental Engineeringin August 2009 analyzed samples of domestic garbage in Beijing’s Chaoyang District. The results showed that household garbage comprised more than 40 percent water.

“Around 60 percent of the garbage from Chinese households is kitchen waste, which is not suitable for burning and generating power because of its low-calorific value,”said Zhao.

Huang said he would support incineration only if there was proper garbage classifcation.

Abandoned treasure

In April 2010, the Beijing authorities launched a household garbage sorting campaign, involving 600 pilot residential communities. Residents living in those communities are required to separate their garbage into three categories—kitchen waste, recyclable material and other waste; separate bins were distributed for each type of waste. But the pilot project has made slow progress.

LIU YING

XU SUHUI

In recent years, a number of Chinese cities, such as Guangzhou and Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang Province, have begun carrying out household waste separation pilot projects. However, neither of these campaigns has been a success due to limited public awareness and participation.

“Many people do not know how to use them and they often do not know how to separate their garbage correctly. The country desperately needs a system that includes regulation, education and special funds,” said Xie with Friends of Nature. “The government needs to do more than just offer free garbage bins and posters.”

In late July, the 49-year-old Huang set up a garbage-sorting station near his home in Changping, which later received the support of the Beijing Municipal Government.

The project cost 140,000 yuan ($20,500). Since August, the facility has begun collecting garbage from 2,000 households.

For the facility to work, Huang’s neighbors must carefully sort their garbage into two types—dry and wet. To help them do that, Huang has distributed special plastic bags to the households. Each of them bears the address of its particular recipient. As the bags are numbered, residents can tell if a particular household is breaking the rules and garbage disposed of incorrectly can be traced to its source.

Once collected, the dry garbage is divided into seven categories according to whether it consists of batteries, recyclable plastic ware, paper, textiles or something else. The wet garbage is frst placed into a dryer.

“If water accounts for a third of the total weight of garbage, we could be talking about as much as 6,000 tons of water a day in Beijing leaking from waste if you simply bury it,” Huang said.

Huang contends that drying wet garbage will greatly reduce the weight of the garbage produced in Beijing and allow the local government to save the money it now spends dealing with contaminated water from landflls.

The Green Beagle, another nongovernmental environmental organization based in Beijing, has recruited 30 volunteers for Huang.

The volunteers help Huang open every bag of garbage he collects and make records of its contents. They help in sorting the garbage and put wet garbage through the drier.

Besides the volunteers, Huang has enlisted full-time workers to help with the sorting.

“I am trying to set an example for the government to find a way to implement garbage sorting,” Huang said. “If the government can push garbage sorting forward, I’m sure we can cut back 30 percent on household garbage production by 2015, even 50 percent.”