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.

(新华社 [Xinhua News Agency] translated by Zhang Tingting for china.org.cn June 10, 2002)