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Toward Safe Treatment of Municipal Solid Wastes in China’s Urban Areas Yong Geng* Circular Economy and Industrial Ecology Research Group, Key Lab on Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, P.R. China 110016. Advanced technologies on Internet of things will be developed in order to optimize the route of MSW deliveries. Third, existing MSW facilities will be updated (with a budget of 21.1 billion RMB for 1882 projects), such as constructing new leachate treatment facilities in existing landfills, recovering methane from existing landfills for power generation, and safely closing those landfills that have reached their designed life cycles. For those areas where land values are higher or incinerators are available, local governments are encouraged to redevelop the existing landfills so that metals can be collected and reused/recycled, wastes with higher caloric values can be burned and composting matters from organic wastes can be used for landscape purpose. Fourth, source separation for all the MSWs will be fully promoted (with a budget of 21 billion RMB). Each province should select at least one city within its territory to initiate source separation project so that related experiences can be shared by other cities. Based upon community waste collection stations, a regional waste collection network and waste market should be established so that those valuable wastes can be collected and traded, rather than flowing into landfills or incinerators. Related facilities will be constructed, such as preparing different garbage bags, trash unicipal solid waste management (MSWM) in China bins, garbage separation centers, and garbage trucks for warrants particular attention as China has become the different wastes. Capacity building programs will also be 1 largest municipal solid waste (MSW) generator in the world. promoted so that best practices can be implemented by the Until the end of 2010, total amount of MSW reached 221 general public. In addition, special hazardous and toxic waste million tons in Chinese urban areas, in which 63.5% had been (HTW) treatment facilities will be constructed so that those safely treated and disposed.2 Urbanization, population growth, HTWs can be safely handled, such as used batteries, discarded and industrialization are three key reasons behind the large fluorescent tubes, mercury-based thermometers, and paints. 3 magnitude of China’s increase in total waste generation. In Fifth, kitchen wastes will be asked to be separated from other order to achieve sustainable MSWM, the Chinese government wastes in all units (including households) at source sites and released a national plan within its 12th five-year plan (2011− then be delivered to special sites by specially designed trucks 2015) on April 19th 2012, targeting safe treatment of MSW in for resourcification (with a budget of 10.9 billion RMB). All the Chinese urban areas. collected kitchen wastes are required to be registered by local The main objective of this plan is to construct necessary governments in order to avoid illegal collection and treatment. infrastructure for safe treatment of MSW. Several missions will Resourcification options include composting, making biofuels, be completed during 2011−2015. First of all, many new waste recovering methane, and mixed treatment with other treatment and final disposal facilities will be constructed (with a degradable organic wastes. Finally, monitoring system for budget of 173 billion RMB), particularly incinerators and MSW will be established (with a budget of 2.5 billion RMB), landfills, so that the increased daily treatment capacity can reach such as online monitoring facilities in all the incinerators and 0.58 million tons.2 Due to different geographical and economic landfills so as to avoid illegal emissions. situations, while incinerators will be encouraged in the more In order to realize these missions, both policies and populated east China, landfills will be encouraged in the less evaluation indicators have been prepared. While preferable populated west China. Second, MSW transfer systems (with a policies are raised to encourage the successful implementation of this plan, such as improved MSWM regulations, the budget of 35.1 billion RMB) will be constructed in all urban areas (urban population more than 30 000) with an increased daily capacity of 0.457 million tons.2 All the MSW will be Received: June 6, 2012 delivered and transferred by using trucks with closed containers Accepted: June 7, 2012 Published: June 15, 2012 and compressors so that secondary pollution can be avoided.
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© 2012 American Chemical Society
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application of market-based economic instruments (emission fees, subsidies, and tax, etc.), and enhanced capacity building efforts for improving public’s awareness and knowledge on MSWM, indicators are used to evaluate each region’s performance so that strong political incentives can exist for local officials to execute such a plan. Such indicators are designed differently by considering the size of each city. While all the municipalities that politically equal to one province (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing), all the provincial capitals (27 cities) and cities specifically designated in the state plan (Dalian, Qingdao, Ningbo, Xiamen, and Shenzhen) are required to reach 100% safe treatment of their MSW, normal cities are required to reach 90%, and county-leveled cities are required to reach 70%. Another key indicator is that while the national rate of treated MSW through incinerators should reach 35%, such a rate in east China should reach 48%. In general this plan built up a solid foundation for China’s MSWM to move toward safe treatment. However, challenges still remain and differ by regions. For example, it is not clear how national budgets will be allocated. Due to different local conditions and imbalanced technology levels, it may be more appropriate for west China to receive more money and technology transfer. Another concern is that risks in wasteproduct markets are inevitable. For instance, composting is mainly hindered by the risk of weak demand for compost, which is influenced by both economic and psychological factors. But no particular strategy has been proposed to emphasize market promotion and risk elimination. Finally, a lack of public participation may impede the construction of waste treatment and disposal facilities. While enough attentions on capacity building have been addressed to improve general public’s awareness, both institutional and legal channels for public to actively participate in the planning stage are missing, which may result in NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome.4
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (71033004), Chinese Academy of Sciences (2008-318), and Ministry of Science and technology (2011BAJ06B01).
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REFERENCES
(1) Chen, X. D.; Geng, Y; Fujita, T. An overview of municipal solid waste management in China. Waste Manage. 2010, 30, 716−724. (2) State Council. 2012. National 12th five-year plan for municipal solid waste treatment infrastructure construction in Chinese urban areas. http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2012-05/04/content_2129302.htm (in Chinese), (accessed June 4 2012). (3) Zhang, D. Q.; Tan, S. K; Gersberg, R. M. Municipal solid waste management in China: Status, problems and challenges. J. Environ. Manage. 2010, 91, 1623−1633. (4) Hostovsky, C. The paradox of the rational comprehensive model of planning: Tales from waste management planning in Ontario, Canada. J. Plann. Educ. Res. 2006, 25 (4), 382−395.
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