Hohhot, which means "green city" in Mongolian, now has an environmentally friendly garbage processing factory.

The factory, built with an investment of 150 million yuan (US$23.5 million) by the Singapore-based Meishang International Group, was formally put into operation on Friday in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Covering an area of 10 hectares, the plant can process 600-800 tons of typical daily home refuse by using biotechnology, accounting for half of the city's daily garbage that was sent to landfills in the past, said Mayor Liu Xiu.

Besides recycling usable resources such as paper and plastics from the garbage, the plant can also turn most of the remainder into fertilizer with the help of microbes. The buried part accounts for just 10 percent of the garbage, said Liu.

"Compared with the simple treatment of burying and burning, the project can help the city become a real 'green' one by saving land use for trash-burying and improving the environment in garbage-processing areas," said Liu.

He said the city government would provide Meishang 40 yuan (US$4.8) per ton as garbage disposal fee. The plant is a major success for the city in introducing private funds into its infrastructure construction.

Guo Rongzong, chairman of the Meishang International Group, said the core of his plant is an automatic separation system which can screen out various kinds of solid wastes and then process them.

The irrecoverable inorganic stuff will be buried, harmful pollutants such as batteries will be processed safely, and natural combustibles such as bamboo and wood can be burned to provide thermal energy for fermentation to develop organic fertilizer, said Guo.

"Actually, garbage is a misplaced resource," said Guo. "Lighters, zip-top cans, glasses, plastics, pieces of paper, textiles, bricks and many other things can all be recycled.

"For instance, aluminium cans may be regenerated at 100 percent into parts of autos and airplanes."

(China Daily September 27, 2004)