Beijing's first kitchen trash disposal plant has commenced
operations, marking the beginning of a new campaign to rid the
capital of trash, and recycle materials that can be reused.
The first load of 200 tons of kitchen trash, mainly from the
city's 122 Olympic partner restaurants and 31 Olympic venues and
facilities, was sent to the plant last weekend and treated. The
plant services all Olympic partner restaurants and canteens.
"The move marks the startup of the city's efforts to control and
manage food-generated trash," Chen Ling, deputy director of the
Beijing municipal administration commission told the media at the
inauguration of the plant last Saturday.
The plant is located in southern Beijing's Daxing District, with
a daily waste treatment capacity of 200 tons, some 73,000 tons per
year.
The volume is just one-sixth of the trash Beijing's kitchens
generate every day. Another three plants will be built in four
years to meet the capital's growing trash disposal demands. Major
restaurants, State-owned enterprises, government organs, hospitals
and schools will be included in this clean kitchen campaign,
leading up to the Olympics next August.
The treatment plant separates solid and liquid waste, recycling
all re-usable material for commercial use, such as fertilizers.
Wang Weiping, a scholar of environment-economy studies at
Beijing-based Renmin University said China was a leader in this
field.
"In kitchen trash treatment, we haven't learned from others,"
Wang said.
In urban Beijing inside the Fourth Ring Road, there are an
estimated 20,000 restaurants.
Currently, a 1,000-member group from Jiangsu Province is
responsible for the collection of this kitchen trash.
The trash is often privately sorted and treated by individuals
and households using various clandestine methods not considered
environmentally friendly.
Home to some 16 million people, Beijing generates 5 million tons
of trash every year, not including construction waste. In 2002,
employees of the State-owned enterprises and government bodies were
encouraged to take the lead and sort trash from recyclables.
(China Daily October 16, 2007)