Police catch suspect in garbage dump case

For second time in a month, construction debris from Shanghai litters Jiangsu land

A man who organized the illegal dumping of a "colossal volume" of construction debris on farmland has been captured by police.

The man, surnamed Wang, told police that he bought the waste - which came mostly from demolition work - in Shanghai and intended to use it to level land for a project in Hefei, Anhui province.

But the building waste was mixed with household waste, which could not be legally used, so he directed the two ships carrying the waste to dump it on a farm in suburban Nantong, Jiangsu province, on the night of July 13.

Police said Wang, a 30-year-old escaped prisoner who had been charged with larceny, may receive combined punishment for the several offenses if he is convicted of polluting the environment.

This is the second time that garbage from Shanghai was found dumped in Jiangsu this month. On July 1, police in Suzhou intercepted eight ships transporting mainly building waste from Shanghai and intending to dump it on the banks of Taihu Lake.

There was 4,000 metric tons of garbage on the vessels. Suzhou police later found that more than 12,000 tons of garbage had been scattered on the banks by the vessels belonging to Jinlu, a company in Kunshan, Jiangsu, that specializes in transporting building waste.

Police said Jinlu planned to get rid of more than 3 million tons of such waste over an 18-month period at a cost of 5.4 yuan ($0.8) per ton.

Industry insiders said that in Shanghai, construction sites, including those for real estate and subways, usually pay transportation companies to transfer construction debris or waste subsoil to designated dumping sites, and it costs around 500 yuan to transport a truckload.

"But sometimes a few transportation companies resell the waste and earn a larger profit or choose to dump the waste illegally," said a project manager of a subway line under construction who asked not to be named.

Construction waste in Shanghai is mainly used in the backfilling of low-lying land, rivers and ditches. It is also used in local landscape architectural projects to promote recycling.

Shen Sanxin, chief engineer at Shanghai Zhuzong Group Construction Development, said the city administration of forestry and landscaping, which oversees this issue, imposes penalties on designated transporters who dispose of trash in unauthorized ways.

"The municipal authority said a year ago that more surveillance cameras would be installed to form a strengthened monitoring network," Shen said.

However, experts said building-waste disposal is a widespread problem as dumping sites in many large cities are beyond their capacity, and disposal in many cities lacks supervision.

"At the current rate of generation of waste from the building of high-rises, undergrounds and demolition, all the urban areas will be covered by construction waste in 300 years, but only half of Chinese cities have drafted regulations on the issue," said Chen Jialong, a professor at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

One long-term solution is the greater use of recycled waste from construction sites. "Currently only 5 percent is recycled as a resource," he said.