This water will be used for irrigating urban green land, filling landscape rivers and car-washing, said Liu Hong, chief of Beijing Saving Water Centre.

Statistics show the total of 89.48 million square metres of public green land in Beijing consume 60 million cubic metres of water every year.

Last year, some 3 million cubic metres of recycled water was used in a trial irrigation project to water 1.5 million square metres of green land.

A total of 260 million cubic metres of recycled water was used last year, 1 million more than in 2004.

The city aims to consume a further 100 million cubic metres of "second-hand" water next year, with the total reaching 600 million by 2010.