China ‘Mega Dump’ Full Of Trash 25 Years Ahead Of Schedule

A ‘mega dump’ in China has reached capacity 25 years sooner than anticipated after receiving far more trash per day than originally planned, according to the BBC.

The Jiangcungou ladfill in Shaanxi Province – around the size of 100 football fields, was designed to accept 2,500 tons of trash per day. Instead, it received 10,000 tons daily, the most of any landfill site in China.

The Jiangcungou landfill in Xi’an city was built in 1994 and was designed to last until 2044.

The landfill serves over 8 million citizens. It spans an area of almost 700,000 square metres, with a depth of 150 metres and a storage capacity of more than 34 million cubic metres.

Until recently, Xi’an was one of the few cities in China that solely relied on landfill to dispose of household waste – leading to capacity being reached early.

Earlier this month, a new incineration plant was opened, and at least four more are expected to open by 2020. Together, they are expected to be able to process 12,750 tonnes of rubbish per day. –BBC

The landfill sites are eventually slated to become ecological parks.

China collected 215 million tons of urban household waste in 2017 according to the country’s statistical yearbook, up from 152 million a decade earlier. There are currently 654 landfill sites across the country and 286 incineration plants.

It’s unknown what their recycling rate is as they have not released figures, however Beijing announced plans to recycle 35% of waste in major cities within the next 13 months, according to a government report.

To that end, the sorting and recycling of rubbish was made mandatory in Shanghai this July, leading to a “sense of panic” over people’s social credit scores.

The plan is ambitious – Shanghai is the largest and most populous city in the world, with more than 24 million residents – three times the size of London or New York. And according to some reports, only 10% of its waste is recycled. Official statistics show that only 3,300 tonnes of recyclables are collected daily, compared to the 19,300 tonnes of residual waste and 5,000 tonnes of kitchen waste that are collected. –BBC

In 2017 alone, China accepted seven million tons of trash from Europe, Japan and the United States, along with 27 million tons of paper waste.