Country to clean up rural pollution

China plans to rid its rural areas of pollution from toilet wastewater and its mountains of trash by 2020, officials said.

Special campaigns have been launched in different regions to improve the rural environment, Zhao Hui, chief economic engineer of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, told a conference organized by the State Council Information Office on Wednesday.

China didn’t have the ability to dispose of all newly produced garbage before 2012, so garbage from urban areas piled up in rural areas, resulting in mountains of trash, Zhao said.

A joint conference system with 13 ministries was established last year to deal with the trash, and governments at and above county level were asked to clear up the trash by 2020, he added.

“Generally, those mountains of construction waste will be transformed into parks after covering them with soil and then planting plants, while those with harmful waste will be removed.”

He also said that up to 90 percent of the country’s rural areas are expected to have their domestic waste disposed of by 2019.

The country, however, faces challenges regarding the treatment of rural domestic wastewater, as new facilities will have to be constructed. Last year, only 22 percent of rural domestic wastewater was treated.

“On average, the country only has to spend about 55 yuan ($8) on each rural resident to treat the waste they produce,” he said. “There is no need to build many new waste treatment plants as the amount of waste is still not beyond the capacity of urban plants.”

When it comes to wastewater treatment, however, new facilities have to be constructed and the cost can be as high as 10,000 yuan per household. Currently, wastewater from 160 million households in China is not treated, he said.

It takes a long time to eliminate such pollution, so plans are drafted accordingly for different regions. “Priority will be given to densely populated and economically developed areas, or those with sensitive environments,” he said.

For other rural areas, while it’s necessary to manage the problem over the long term, importance must first be attached to toilet wastewater, he said. Septic tanks will be built in these areas before 2020 to collect toilet wastewater, which will be used as fertilizer. The cost for each household will only be about 1,000 yuan, he added.

Those mountains of construction waste will be transformed into parks.” Zhao Hui, chief economic engineer of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development