Shanghai’s environment authorities have declared the city’s top ten environment news in year 2000. The news are listed as follow:
1. City proved initial success in Suzhou Creek clean-up project. Officials claimed that the city government’s goal of “making the creek free of stench and dark water by 2000” has been realized.
2. Shanghai’s organizing committee for “the Century Campaign of China’s Environmental Protection”, a nationwide campaign of press publicity to the country’s environment protection efforts initiated in 1993, was awarded by the Central Environment Protection Commission for its outstanding performance last year. The theme of Shanghai’s publicity campaign of 2000 was “protecting water resources and improving water quality.”
3. The city opened a public hotline for supervision on environmental protection. Tip-off on pollutions was encouraged.
4. About 3,700 industrial enterprises have completed three months ahead of schedule a facility renovation to help substantially reduce pollution in the process of discharging wastes.
5. The city government held a conference on a three-year environmental protection plan from 2000 to 2003, asking government bodies to make effort to stably and continually improve the city environment, abiding by the latest guideline of the central government.
6.The city has completed a group of green land project, including the first phase of the Yan’an Road Green Project, Pudong Century Park and Hongqiao Central Garden. The city has built 828 hectares of green area last year. Its green area has covered 21 percent of the city’s total area, 4,6 square meters per capita.
7. The city enforced a regulation handling with plastic meal boxes on October 1.
8. The city’s Water Resource Bureau carried out citywide investigation of water systems, seeking for important statistics for the use of further water clean up efforts.
9. The city has spent more than 13 billion yuan on environmental protection last year, 3 percent more than its GDP in the same period.
10. About 20 percent of the city’s downtown area has started a garbage separating and collecting effort, enabling an effective garbage recycling system by city’s environmental workers. The areas include 613 residential quarters with some 510,000 families.
(eastday.com 01/11/2001)