| Home > Living In China |
Residents in Guangzhou trash plan to construct incinerator
print 
email 
Favorite 
Transtlate Experts and decision makers are faced with a dilemma about how to keep the environment safe and deal with the huge amount of household garbage, a problem highlighted in a recent dispute surrounding a planned incinerator in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.
"We must address the problems of garbage incineration and garbage sorting," Lü Zhiyi, deputy secretary general of the Guangzhou Government said at a press conference Sunday.
He spoke in response to the plan of setting up a facility to burn trash within the densely populated commercial condos in Panyu, Guangzhou.
The 900 million yuan ($132 million) project is being built to replace a refuse landfill that will be filled to capacity within two years. The garbage incinerator plant planned for southeast Guangzhou's Panyu district could handle 2,000 tons of garbage daily, according to China Central Television (CCTV).
The government began selecting the site of the project back in 2003. In 2006, a document for site selection was issued by Guangzhou planning bureau and permitted by the land department in 2009.
Officials said the plant would be safe and it would us internationally advanced equipment and operating systems, so as to effectively control the emissions of dioxins and other pollutants.
Nie Yongfeng of the Department of Environment Science and Engineering at Tsinghua University said burning trash is a good way to get rid of trash in crowded urban areas.
However, many residents are concerned about the potential dangers of the project.
Earlier this month, a sample survey of 1,550 people among the local population of 300,000 showed that over 97 percent of the respondents are opposed to the project because it would produce "dioxin," a kind of deadly toxin which causes cancer, according to Guangdong Provincial Public Opinion Research Center.
Some are going online to protest and some doing so in person because they feel it would pose health risks.
They are angry because they moved away from the crowded downtown to get some fresh air and they are worried that the project would spoil their way of life.
On October 25, hundreds of residents wore masks and demonstrated at the local Hailong-wan plaza to protest the project.
Zhao Zhangyuan, a researcher at Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, told CCTV that the dioxin could be accumulated in the body and cause diseases.
He also said incinerators are being closed in Japan, a worldwide trend.
The authority is evaluating the project's environmental impacts, an important process for public participation.
Ye Wen, deputy director of Panyu Urban Utilities and Landscaping Bureau, said they would promote the project according to law.
"We will never start the construction if the project failed the evaluation procedure," Ye said.
A Jiaxi, a neighborhood resident, told CCTV, "The government meant to listen to us and take our opinion into account."
Another resident, Yu Chunchun, said that it will be hard to change the government's decision as the project has been planned for years.
Custom
more
Web Dictionary
Primary＆secondary
Beijing National Day School
Beijing Concord College of Sino-Canada
Brief Introduction of BCCSC Established in the year 1993, Huijia School is a K-12 boarding priva...Beijing Huijia Private School
