Ten of the 18 waste water treatment plants planned for the urban part of Henan Province, in central China, are now operating on a trial basis, local environmental protection officials said Saturday.
With a designed capacity of handling 1.97 million tons of urban domestic sewage per day, or 40.6 percent of the total, the 18 plants are expected to cost a total of 3.09 billion yuan (US$372 million), the officials added.
The plants are part of the regional campaign to clean up the country's much-polluted Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe and Haihe rivers, four of the country's seven major rivers.
Millions of tons of waste water are discharged into those rivers without treatment.
The 18 projects will enable Henan to be in the forefront of waste water treatment in China.
The urban part of the province produced 1.18 billion tons of domestic sewage in 2000.
Meanwhile, Henan has closed hundreds of small polluting firms in its campaign against industrial pollution over the past few years.
(People's Daily 10/06/2001)
