China to improve household waste treatment

China has set a goal of fostering a sound regulatory system on urban domestic refuse treatment by 2020 to deal with rising pile-up of household waste in cities.

By 2020, harmless treatment of household garbage will cover all the municipalities directly under the central government, municipalities with independent planning status, and provincial capital cities, according to a plan recently released by the country's top economic planner.

Other cities and towns should have 70 percent to 95 percent of household waste harmlessly treated, according to the plan of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Earlier data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development showed China's treatment of urban domestic waste came in at a rate of 94.1 percent in 2015.

China's rapidly growing cities are facing a pile-up of household waste, and disposal measures including landfills and incineration have attracted much public attention over air and soil pollution.

To ease public concerns, authorities released a guideline on urban garbage disposal through incineration in November last year, pledging to strengthen regulation on site selection of incineration facilities.

The facilities should be high-standard, safe and environment-friendly, and existing projects that failed to meet the standards should be shut down, according to the guideline. Endi