Huge piles of urban waste and rubbish are becoming a stumbling block to Shanghai's bid to become an advanced metropolis, government officials and experts warned yesterday.

"An advanced city should be sanitary, civilized and modernized, but now we are surrounded by waste," said Zhao Guotong, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and senior engineer of the Municipal Economic Commission.

The city produces more than 5,000 tons, sometimes 10,000 tons of household rubbish a day, the major part of which is simply buried underground.

Two new furnaces, one completed and one under construction, will be able to treat some 2,000 tons of waste each day.

Industry, meanwhile, produces about 12 million tons of waste annually. Although about 93 percent of that is treated, the remaining 7 percent still poses a considerable problem for society.

The development of efficient technology has been a major concern, said Zhao.

A local research institute has recently developed the technology to turn waste gypsum into roadbed materials.

Hospital waste, which can include medical equipment and even body parts has been routinely buried along with household rubbish. Plans are afoot to construct a medical waste treatment center which will reduce the risk of contamination and pollution from such waste to nil.

(China Daily June 13, 2003)