5 arrested over tons of garbage dumped at scenic Taihu Lake

Jiangsu provincial prosecutors approved the arrests of five suspects on Thursday in the dumping of a mountain of garbage on the banks of picturesque Taihu Lake in Suzhou.

In July, eight ships from Shanghai, carrying a total of 4,000 metric tons of garbage, were intercepted by police in Suzhou. The vessels, covered by tarpaulins, were loaded with construction and household waste that they were about to dump on the banks of the lake in the Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Vacation Zone, police said.

More than 12,000 tons of garbage had been shipped from Shanghai to a dumping site near the lake since mid-June. Police said the plan was to dump more than 3 million tons of waste at a cost of 5.4 yuan (80 US cents) per ton over 18 months.