China's Urban Sludge Dilemma: Sinking in Stink - Caixin | A source close to the Beijing Drainage Group, a municipal government corporation that runs the city's sewage treatment plants, told Caixin that most of Beijing's untreated sludge has been dumped in rural areas for years, first at mining sites and later on farm fields...."Years ago, gravel pits or abandoned mine shafts were sought out," the source said. "In recent years, dump sites have gotten farther away, some even as far as Hebei Province."...Beijing's wastewater treatment facilities extracted a combined 2,400 tons of sludge every day back in 2011, or about 800,000 tons annually, according to a Beijing Drainage official who was quoted in April that year by the official Beijng Daily newspaper. The official said all city sludge is properly treated, and none presents a pollution hazard....But sources interviewed by Caixin contradicted those claims. They said the amount of unprocessed sludge discharged by Beijing's treatment plants is high, perhaps equal to several hundred thousand tons per year. Moreover, at some plants sludge handling treatment has yet to be put to use..(more after break)
A 2011 research paper by Tan Guodong, a doctoral candidate at Beijing Forest University, and Li Wenzhong, a research fellow at Beijing Water Science & Technology Institute, estimated the city's annual output at more than 500,000 tons of untreated sludge. ....Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences researchers concluded that this dumping had a serious environmental impact. They found that the sludge-filled gravel pits contained dangerous levels of heavy metals, ammonia nitrogen and fecal coliform. Also lurking in the muck was an infectious pathogen called Shigella bacteria, which can lead to dysentery....Moreover, according to one source, "farmers are generally unwilling to allow sludge dumping on land they contract out. Only on collective farm or forest lands that are not allocated to a single farmer are people willing to make short-term profits and disregard the long-term impact." ...An internal Beijing Drainage document obtained by Caixin indicates that wastewater facilities have paid 1 yuan per ton per kilometer traveled in sludge transportation fees over the past two years. "Wastewater treatment plants effectively control costs by outsourcing their sludge," said the insider. "Land contractors who accept sludge charge dumping fees of 20 to 35 yuan per ton, and transportation contractors charge 35 to 50 yuan per ton."
A 2011 research paper by Tan Guodong, a doctoral candidate at Beijing Forest University, and Li Wenzhong, a research fellow at Beijing Water Science & Technology Institute, estimated the city's annual output at more than 500,000 tons of untreated sludge. ....Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences researchers concluded that this dumping had a serious environmental impact. They found that the sludge-filled gravel pits contained dangerous levels of heavy metals, ammonia nitrogen and fecal coliform. Also lurking in the muck was an infectious pathogen called Shigella bacteria, which can lead to dysentery....Moreover, according to one source, "farmers are generally unwilling to allow sludge dumping on land they contract out. Only on collective farm or forest lands that are not allocated to a single farmer are people willing to make short-term profits and disregard the long-term impact." ...An internal Beijing Drainage document obtained by Caixin indicates that wastewater facilities have paid 1 yuan per ton per kilometer traveled in sludge transportation fees over the past two years. "Wastewater treatment plants effectively control costs by outsourcing their sludge," said the insider. "Land contractors who accept sludge charge dumping fees of 20 to 35 yuan per ton, and transportation contractors charge 35 to 50 yuan per ton."