Total Discharge Of Sewage & Waste Into China's Rivers Last Year - 75 Billion Tons

[hatrack]

UP to 40 percent of China's rivers were seriously polluted last year after 75 billion tons of sewage and waste water was discharged into them, the country's water authority said yesterday.

Water shortages, serious river pollution and a deterioration in the aquatic ecology in 2011 were described as "quite outstanding," and could threaten the country's sustainable growth, Hu Siyi, vice minister at the Ministry of Water Resources, told a press conference in Beijing.

China, with a population of 1.3 billion people, consumes more than 600 billion cubic meters of water a year, or about three-quarters of its exploitable water resources, Hu said.

The per capita of water resources is only 2,100 cubic meters annually, or about 28 percent of the world's average. About two-thirds of Chinese cities are "water-needy," he said, while nearly 300 million rural residents lack access to drinking water.

EDIT

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=494571&type=National

[ellisonz]

1. Nothing to see here: just the price of mass production...