Yangtze River Now Receives Three Tons Of Sewage Every Minute

[hatrack]

"The sewage disposal rate along the Yangtze River is only about 10 percent, lower than the national average, said Wang Jirong, vice director of the State Environmental Protection Administration.

According to Liberation Daily, at a briefing on the nation's "Travel a long journey to protect the Yangtze" program held in Beijing Saturday, Wang said that the Yangtze has three "one thrid's"--its water resources take one third of the nation, it has one third Chinese cities along its sides, and the sewage released into it also accounts for one third of the national total.

Currently the Yangtze is facing four major problems in its water environment. First is pollution. Statistics show that last year 16.4 billion tons of domestic and industrial sewage was poured into the river, or 3 tons per minute. Besides, the water body was also seriously damaged by fertilizer, animal waste from both banks as well as sewage discharged by the more than 210,000 ships in navigation lanes. Second is grave eutrophication of lakes in Yangtze's branches. Third is damage on ecological environment and low forest coverage, which cause serious soil erosion and frequent geological disasters such as mud-rock-flow and landslip, especially in the upper reaches where the banks are steeper. Fourth, because of large-area aquiculture, the water is also polluted by artificially put bait."

EDIT

http://english.people.com.cn/200410/10/eng20041010_159640.html

[GainesT1958]

1. Boy...THAT river is sure going to smell good...

During the 2008 Olympics!:eyes:

B-)

[4morewars]

2. They should be up to their knees....

in shit by then !!!

[delete_bush]

3. This is one of the issues regarding foreign

competition that is not talked about. One of the hidden costs of a product is the future expense associated with the impact of its manufacture on the environment.

Kerry should hit this harder when talking about outsourcing of jobs. Most Americans seem to have a sense of fairness and should be able to grasp the fact that we cannot even begin to compete with countries that dump their toxins in rivers and oceans, all of which will come back to haunt the planet in the not so far away future.

And who will pick up the tab for the cleanup? The U.S. taxpayer. Trade is only fair when we all play by the same rules. Global corporations could care less about the environment, they just push a button and switch manufacturing to another country if necessary.

[4morewars]

4. It's the number 2 reason they go there,

The number one reason being the slave wages. Right on the heels of that is the fact that they don't have to clean up after themselves. No pun intended or implied in the subject line, BTW.