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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Foreign Waste Found in East China

About 760 tons of imported industrial waste has been discovered and banned from entering Ningbo, a port city in east China's Zhejiang Province.


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About 760 tons of imported industrial waste has been discovered and banned from entering Ningbo, a port city in east China's Zhejiang Province.

A total of 45 containers from a company in the Republic of Korea were found crammed with wasted catalyzers containing vanadium, according to the local customs.

Without any kinds of approval of the State Environmental Protection Administration, this is the largest amount of foreign waste discovered at the city in recent years.

According to Ningbo Customs, the port has handled a large quantity of waste materials and scrapped machines imported from abroad dring the past a couple of years.

The foreign garbage is mainly sold to neighboring Taizhou, where small enterprises have the scrapped machines dismantled for some rare elements.

Most garbage is from developed countries, which has flowed into China via different channels.

During the Spring Festival in February, Taizhou Customs in Zhejiang Province detected 466.66 tons of household garbage which mainly contained used ring-pull cans and plastic film.

Last December, the Lianyungang Customs in Jiangsu Province intercepted 339 tons of solid waste, which was finally shipped back to the Republic of Korea.

In 2001, customs in south China's Guangdong Province uncovered a large amount of imported garbage including used tires, clothes, home appliances and computers.

"Without urgent action, China might become a dumping ground of garbage from developed countries," said Xie Taijian, a deputy to National People's Congress (NPC), the Chinese legislature, recently at the annual session of NPC.

It is estimated that more than 500 million tons of toxic waste were produced around the world, a growing portion of which goes eventually to developing countries.

"We have noticed the problem and are preparing to enact laws to ward off foreign garbage," Guangdong Governor Lu Ruihua said.

Some companies are importing foreign waste for quick money, ignoring laws and rules on environmental protection.

"Though there exist short-term profits in such businesses, the harm is serious and long-lasting," said Huang Guosheng, a senior researcher with the Guangdong Electronic Technology Research Institute.


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