Wuhan said to be turning blind eye to waste plants
Print Edition
TWO garbage incineration plants are being allowed to operate illegally by the government in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, it is alleged, forcing residents to move and sickening many of those left behind.
The plants, in the city’s Guodingshan of Hanyang districts, were built in 2012 to burn household and medical waste, respectively, though they were close to a residential district, two kindergartens and a primary school, according to yesterday’s Beijing News.
One is just 1.2 kilometers from the Hanjiang River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, and only 800 meters from two major tap water plants which supply about 2 million residents in the city’s Hanyang and Hankou districts, it said.
Lei Ming, a Wuhan environmental protection supervisor, told the newspaper that both plants are operating without approval from environmental authorities but the city government just turns a blind eye, citing huge demand.
Local residents keep their windows tightly sealed. But 65-year-old Huang Wangsheng told the newspaper that he is always choked awake at midnight by the smell. “I want to knock my head against the wall sometimes,” he said.
In a residential complex about 400 meters from the plants, residents showed the newspaper a list of names of people who had suffered cancer in the past two years, 10 of whom had died.
The household waste plant was closed at the end of 2013 after the Hubei Environmental Protection Department found its operation illegal. However, it was in operation again despite no approval having been given by environmental protection authorities, the newspaper said.
The medical waste incineration plant had never suspended operations, it said.
China’s environmental protection law prohibits household waste incineration plants from being less than 300 meters from residences, and the one in Guodingshan has relocated residents living within the range, it reported.
But Zhao Zhangyuan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, said that distance was not far enough to be safe.
“It can be safe if the waste has been very specifically classified and we have reached the top level of processing the waste,” Zhao told the newspaper. Current residents still breathe pollutants every day, Zhao said.
The medical waste plant has relocated residents within a 400-meter radius. However, the environmental protection rules say the distance should be 800 meters, the newspaper said.
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