Yellow River is 10% sewage: Official

In the past 12 months, some 120 million tons of household sewage, mostly untreated, have been released into the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province in Northwest China, a report by China Central Television (CCTV) said on Wednesday.

Lu Shaowen, director of the pollution control office of the Lanzhou environmental protection bureau was quoted by the station as saying that only about 3,300 tons of the effluent had been treated, and even that failed to meet quality standards because of the city's out-of-date sewage treatment facilities.

Tests showed that the levels of nitrogen and coliform in the water were, respectively, 2.4 times and 42 times higher than the standard allows, Lu said.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, a non-governmental organization based in Beijing, told China Daily yesterday that pollution levels in the Yellow River had been a hot topic for many years.

Between the 1980s and 2005, the volume of wastewater flowing into the river increased from about 2 billion tons to 4.3 billion tons. It now accounts for about one-tenth of its total volume, Ma said.

more from China Daily