Beijing needs cleaner air, more water, but more urgently perhaps, it needs to find where to dump its trash. Translated from Southern Weekend, (photo: the landfill site) via sina.com:
Liu Ying (ÂàòËã±), a 30-year resident of Beijing’s northwestern Liulitun (ÂÖ≠Èáå±Ø), is often awakened by the smell of trash in the latter half of the night. She lives less than one mile from a huge garbage landfill site, 40 hectares in size and choking tens of thousands of people like Liu since 1997. With a minor headache, Liu sometimes has to take a breather by shutting herself up in her bathroom, and taking a nap there.
Scientists have found that underground water, a major source for drinking water for locals, is contaminated and poses a health threat to residents around. Cancer rate in the community is close to 1%, much higher than the norm of 0.03%.
In 1995, before the site was built into a dumping ground, Beijing’s city environmental protection bureau advised the Haidian District (ʵ∑Ê∑ÄÂå∫) government not to proceed, citing the potential contamination of the underground water. But Haidian was desperate to find a place to dump its trash, forcing the city environmental watchdog to agree.
While people are hoping the landfill will be closed by 2012 when it’s filled, locals heard that the government wants to build a garbage-incineration power plant. Residents started to act, online and off, to stop it.
According to the statistics from Beijing city government, with the upcoming closings of current 10 landfill sites in the city, Beijing will find nowhere to dump its 10,770 tons of trash every day by 2010.[Full Text in Chinese]
