A project has been launched this year in Harbin for safe disposal
of a major part of its toxic wastes with the goal of ridding the
environment of all kinds of dangerous waste by the year 2005.
"This endeavor made by Harbin, capital city of northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province, aims to meet the related requirements and standards
of the state to eliminate damage by toxic wastes to the environment
and human beings," said Jiang Songqi, director of the Solid Waste
Administration of the Environmental Protection Bureau of
Harbin.
Harbin aims at getting rid of 95 percent of its dangerous medical
wastes by the end of June this year. By the end of this year, the
city hopes to safely eliminate all dangerous medical wastes. All
other wastes containing poisonous or harmful mineral substances or
chemicals are scheduled for gradual disposal in accordance with the
relevant state safety standards by the end of 2005.
Forty-seven categories of wastes are listed by the state as
dangerous, and topping that list in order are clinical wastes,
medical wastes and medicine wastes.
Harbin produced 67,500 tons of dangerous wastes -- divided into 60
different kinds in 20 categories last year -- of which about 2,000
tons were produced by some 200 medical institutions.
A
center in Harbin has been built with the daily capacity of
disposing some 10 tons of medical waste through the harmless ways
of burning, burying and re-cycling.
Jiang Songqi said Harbin has stipulated a "regulation on the
prevention of pollution by dangerous wastes in Harbin" according to
the state's related laws and regulations, which provides detailed
provisions concerning such things as the registration of dangerous
wastes, management permits, disposal and so on. Violators will be
fined 50,000 yuan (US$6,038.64) and given a certain period of time
to make corrections. Supervisors lax in their duties also will
receive administrative sanctions or face possible law suits.
Further, Harbin has enhanced technical research on the disposal of
dangerous wastes. For instance, the city's environmental protection
bureau, in collaboration with the Harbin Institute of Technology,
launched a key research project of recycling and reusing of
batteries.
As
in many places in China, dangerous wastes are not being recycled in
all categories through the disposal process in Harbin due to an
inadequate public awareness.
"That's a major task in our future work, which we must tackle
successfully to assure the success of the whole project," said
Jiang.
(新華社 [Xinhua News
Agency] translated by Zhang Tingting for china.org.cn June 10,
2002)