In a wonderful example of national co-operation several provinces near Beijing are going all out to help ensure blue skies for the host city of next summer’s Olympic Games.

The local governments of Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi provinces, Tianjin Municipality and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have worked out measures to improve air quality for the Olympic Games.

The provincial government of coal-rich Shanxi published its measures last week, ordering that all desulfurization projects at major coal-fired power plants be completed before July 1 next year.

Businesses in heavily-polluting industries — power, iron and steel, chemical and concrete — will have to cut production or even close if they fail to meet the emission standards during the games. In addition, all vehicles traveling to Beijing from Shanxi must comply with Europe II emission standards from July 25 to Sept. 20, 2008.

Similar moves will also be taken in Shandong, which discharged 1.96 million tons of sulfur dioxide last year, the most among the mainland’s 31 provincial-level regions.

The Laicheng Power Plant of Huadian Power in Shandong’s Laiwu City began a desulfurization project on two 300,000-kw generation units in late October with an investment of RMB140 million (US$18.9 million). Originally, the project was scheduled for completion in 2009.

Environmental authorities in Hebei, which surrounds Beijing and Tianjin, have pledged to spend about RMB21 billion on anti-pollution projects and environmental monitoring stations.
Source: People’s Daily Online

Perhaps it is better that you do not ask too closely where the sparking glass of seeming spring water originated. It was once sewage water. But it is OK for it is not intended that you should drink it. The water came from the city sewage and was reclaimed at the Qinghe Water Reclamation Plant. That it is reclaimed water you can see in the swimming pool.

BOCOG, which is running the Olympics, invited the media to visit the sewage treatment plant and see first-hand how water reclamation works at the plant in the north of the city.

Zhang Jianxin, shown in our illustration, a senior engineer with the Beijing Drainage Group, said the reclaimed water they produced from city sewage water could be used for industry, irrigation and urban purposes. But not for human consumption. For which relief, much thanks.

Beijing has a lot of demand for water and the Olympics in one year’s time will exacerbate the situation. So, where possible, water is being reclaimed.

With four reclamation plants, two reused water pumping stations and 4,000 km of distribution pipeline working for the city, 2.5 million cubic meters of water is processed per day which accounts for 90% of the city’s total wastewater which was the very high goal set by the city government for the 2008 Olympic Games. (Checking around, it is difficult to find any other city which has set such a high target.)

Yang Xiangping, general manager of the Beijing Drainage Group, said, ‘Of the 90% of wastewater processed, 46 percent is recycled. We finish building another reclamation plant called Bei Xiaohe by the end of this year before the Games. This will help us to reach the 50% ratio, and that is our target.’

Reclaimed water will also run to the nearby Haidian and Chaoyang districts for urban uses such as road cleaning and watering roadside plants and flowers. In that way, about 30 million cubic meters of water will be saved annually.

Not much is wasted. Zhang Jianxin said, ‘We have about 240 tons of sludge per day after the sewage waster is cleaned. But the sludge is not waste at all, We are building a sludge processing system introduced from Germany to turn it into fertilizer. We will provide 60 tons of fertilizer to Beijing’s farmlands every day with the system.’
Source: China Daily