China Dumped 201 Million Cubic Meters Of Waste Into Its Own Coastal Waters Last Year - Up 27% YOY

[hatrack]

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China dumped a total of 200.7 million cubic meters of waste into its coastal waters in 2018, a 27% rise on the previous year and the highest level in at least a decade, the country’s environment ministry said on Tuesday. The majority of the waste was dumped in the delta regions of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers, both major industrial zones on China’s eastern coast, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said.

“At the moment, there are some clear problems with the work on the marine ecological environment, with some regions not showing a lot of awareness or paying sufficient attention, and lacking strong initiative and dedication,” Huo Chuanlin, deputy director of the MEE’s marine environment department, said at a briefing in Beijing.

Environmental groups have expressed concern that China, desperate to clean up its own rivers, is dumping increasing amounts of trash in its seas instead. However, Huo said overall conditions in China’s coastal waters, including issues like wastewater entering the seas from rivers, were improving and China could not be blamed for a global ocean polluting crisis.

“China is the biggest producer and exporter of plastic products, accounting for about 30% of the world’s total, but that doesn’t mean China is a major marine plastic polluting country,” he said.

Ed. - Whatevs.

EDIT

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollution-oceans/chinas-ocean-waste-surges-27-in-2018-ministry-idUSKBN1X80FL

[lordsummerisle]

1. Sounds like a lot

(is there an understatement font?)

[Mike 03]

2. Why don't they bury it underground?

There's so much unused land in China.

Sad. This reminds me of the story of the enchanting, now-extinct Yangtze river dolphin (Baiji), which has been extinct for at least a decade now, due to pollution, dumping and dam-building. Chinese wanted this dolphin saved, and the authorities kept lying and saying it was not in any danger, and one year environmentalists attempted to count them and found none.