Britain pours tons of trash into China
23/1/2007 17:18
Lydia Chen/ Shanghai Daily news
Britain has
shipped 1.9 million tons of trash into China in the past eight years, the
Southern Express, a newspaper based in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province
reported today.
The amount of trash poured from Britain to China rocketed
158 times to a record 1.9 million tons since Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of
Britain, first came into office in 1997, when the number was only 12,000 tons,
the report said, citing Sky TV, a popular British broadcaster.
The trash,
dumped at a reclamation center in Fuoshan city, Guangdong Province, includes
used metals like copper, nickel, zinc and lead, which may severely threaten
water resources and the environment, while China exports more than 16 billion
pounds worth of cargo to the European country every year, the report said.
Waste paper and used plastic items are also on the waste list, according
to the report.
The reclamation center, founded in the 1970s, was
unlicensed, a local environmental watchdog told the newspaper.
The
report also said that some British environmentalists were concerned about the
peril the trash may cause and that it may compromise Britain¡¯s¡°environment
first¡±policy. However, Ben Bradshaw, the reigning Labour Party¡¯s environment
minister, retorted that the trash fleeted to China would make little difference
to the world¡¯s deteriorating global warming.
The State Environment
Protection administration said today that investigations on the dumping were
under way and it would keep a close eye on the case, the report
said.
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