JIADING District will turn a former garbage treatment plant site into an ecological park — bringing relief to nearby residents suffering from the site’s stench.

The 26,000-square-meter park will be built on the former Anting household wastes treatment plant. It will open to the public in 2018, the district government announced on Friday.

The northwest suburb district suspended the operation of the plant in April as it was no longer able to treat all the large amounts of waste generated from the district.

The plant, built in 2005, had served as the major treatment center for Jiading’s daily waste. But it was using outdated “pile and ferment” methods to treat garbage. It could handle at most 500 tons of waste every day, but the daily garbage tally of the district had risen to more than 800 tons.

The garbage piling process, as well as being inefficient, generated a strong stench, while the excessive garbage the site couldn’t handle was stacked within the site, causing distress to nearby residents, according to the government.

The district built a new garbage treatment plant in its Waigang Town that uses a cutting-edge incineration process and can generate electricity during the garbage treatment.

The new plant, in a Jiading Energy Recycling Center, started a trial operation on July 18. It can generate 280,000 kilowatt hours of electricity from processing 1,000 tons of garbage.

Bulldozers have demolished the old treatment plant covering 30,000 square meters. A rainwater collection ditch has been dug around the land to collect waste water flushed out by rains. The water will be sent to a nearby sewage treatment plant before being discharged into rivers.

The future park will feature a circular-shaped pedestrian path on an artificial hill, according to a government blueprint.

Construction will take a year and the park will open free of admission.