Shanghai Marks World Environment DayOfficials of Shanghai's water administration said Monday that the waterways in the city can become clean only when the 5.78 million tons of daily sewage it produced is thoroughly treated before discharge.However, they said at a gathering to mark the World Environment Day, which falls June 5, that only 55 percent of the daily sewage discharge is now treated in the city. Shanghai's present sewage treatment facilities have a combined daily treatment capacity of 5.4 million tons, close to the total actual discharge amount. However, they have a low application rate. Wang Songnian, vice director of the Shanghai Water Administration, said that Shanghai will give water pollution treatment priority with the establishment of a sewage collecting system covering the city, and improve the treatment standard. An advanced 400,000-ton sewage treatment plant will be built in Shanghai by 2003, and its capacity will be expanded to 800,000 tons in the second phase of construction. According to the municipal government's environmental protection plan, the city's sewage treatment rate will be increased to 90 percent in 20 years, of which 80 percent will be discharged after undergoing an advanced treatment process. By then, the daily sewage discharge in Shanghai will grow to 8.5 million tons, according to environmentalists here. |
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