With space running out in its 13 landfills, Beijing should build new waste treatment facilities and find ways to reduce garbage discharge or the city may run out of space to dump refuse within 4 years, a municipal management official warned yesterday.

Beijing generates 6.57 million tons of garbage every year (18,000 tons a day). These figures are increasing at an annual rate of 8 percent, according to figures provided by Wei Panming, deputy chief of the Environmental Sanitation Facilities Division under the municipal management committee.

"Ninety percent of Beijing's garbage is disposed of through land-fill. Current facilities are struggling to meet the increasing demand," Wei said. "Two major landfill sites are already full to capacity and have been capped. The 11 remaining sites have capacity for another 4 to 5 years. "

The designed processing capacity of Gao'antun Landfill in Chaoyang District is 1,500 tons per day, but last year Chaoyang District generated over 4,000 tons. Food waste increased considerably thanks to the Olympic Games. "The liquid content in this waste and the operational overload makes it very difficult to contain the unpleasant smell that affected many people living nearby last summer," Wei said.

This year the district has taken a new series of pollution control measures including improvements to rubbish trucks and new odor-elimination techniques.

"If the municipal government does not find further ways to reduce waste discharge and build new treatment facilities, Beijing might face another rubbish crisis," Wei warned.

In 1983, rapidly increasing discharges and simple landfill facilities finally led to a crisis. Piles of rubbish were seen everywhere around the city's third and fourth ring roads. The number of heaps of rubbish, each covering an area over 50 square meters, reached 4,700. To clean up the mess the city spent over 2.3 billion yuan.

"Construction of a new landfill takes five to six years, but it is already very difficult to find an appropriate location in Beijing for landfill use," Wei said. "Building of new landfills must take into consideration the requirements of environmental and underground water protection, climate and wind direction. They should be at least 500 meters from residential areas."

(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, June 9, 2009)