Ten thousand tons of consumer garbage thrown away by 1 million residents living in Pudong of Shanghai no longer need to be buried in the fields. Instead, the garbage is now used to generate power in a large-scale garbage incineration power plant, the first of its kind in Chinese mainland.

The power plant, located in the Yuqiao Industrial Park in Pudong New Area, has a garbage disposal capacity of 1,000-1,100 tons daily, which means one fourteenth of the 14,000 tons of consumer wastes produced in Shanghai. By burning the garbage, it generates 300,000-350,000 kwh electricity each day, enough for 100,000 households.

The power plant covers an area of 80,000 square meters and its total investment cost US$80 million, including US$30 million loaned from the French government. Its technology and equipments, involving three furnaces and two 8,500 kw turbo-units, are from ALSTOM of France.

The power plant was put into trial operation on September 20, 2002 with the approval of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Administration. Up to now, 60.41 million kwh electricity has been generated. Apart the 16.52 million kwh consumed by itself, the plant has provided 43.89 million kwh to the city.

The garbage power plant will help save land used for garbage disposal. City dwellers of Shanghai produce 30,000 tons of garbage every day, and a major part of this amount is buried, which is a waste of land because the ground with garbage underneath cannot be utilized for other purposes.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, January 29, 2003)