The main phase of the largest urban garbage treatment project on the Chinese mainland has been completed in Changsha city, capital of central China's Hunan Province.

Establishment of the main construction, with a total capacity of 45 million cubic meters of solid waste, signified the end to Changsha's three open-air garbage dumps and direct discharges of urban waste into the Xiangjiang River.

The project is one of 22 pollution treatment projects assisted by Japanese loans in the Xiangjiang river valley. Xiangjiang is believed to be "the mother river" of Hunan. Over 2.3 billion yuan (US$277 million) was spent on pollution treatment in the river valley in the last century, 35 percent of which came from Japanese loans.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2002)