Rubbish-eating power generators are to be put in place to make the treatment of rubbish more environmentally friendly throughout Shanghai City.
The city's determination was recently demonstrated through a recent agreement signed between Shanghai Electric (Group) Corp, one of China's largest electrical equipment manufacturers, and Belgium-based Sechers Better Technology Corp. Under a 49-million-yuan (US$5.9 million) agreement, Sechers is to transfer a whole set of rubbish-incineration power generation technology to Shanghai Electric.
The unveiling of the agreement echoes earlier news that the city's second power plant fuelled by burning rubbish, will begin operation in the Jiading District early next year.
With a total investment of 750 million yuan (US$90.7 million), including a US$32.1 million low-interest loan from Spain, the 13.6-hectare power plant will see the installation of three rubbish-incinerating processing lines and two turbine units with a 25-megawatt power generating capacity.
The new plant will treat up to 1,500 tons of rubbish a day, a large part of daily household rubbish yielded by local families living in districts west of the Huangpu River, according to Zhu Tian'en, an official of the city's Environmental Sanitation Administration.
Yet the seemingly encouraging news can hardly cover the existing embarrassing fact of the city's first rubbish-incineration power plant.
Located in the Pudong New Area, the plant, previously billed as China's largest, began operation last December after being under construction for nearly two years.
Capable of treating 1,000 tons of daily rubbish, the plant was also expected to generate electricity of some 100 million kilowatt-hour annually.
However, a considerable part of the rubbish currently collected from local households can barely meet the conditions for burning, which has to some extent affected the plant's fully-fledged operation.
"We sometimes have to add fuel oil to power the burning process as some of the rubbish is unable to burn," said Lu Mingchuan, general manager of the plant.
Insiders attribute the situation to the lack of effective community-level management in terms of segregated rubbish collection, leading to a drain of "more useful" rubbish, such as paper and plastics which are able to provide expected calorific value.
(China Daily April 15, 2002)
