Chinese cities treated 57 percent of the wastewater they
discharged last year, a rise of 17 percentage points from five
years ago when the country had been stepping up environmental
protection efforts.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, as much as 60
percent of the urban wastewater was discharged without treatment in
2002.
To clean up the polluted rivers and lakes in the country, the
government has built more sewage treatment facilities, which
resulted in the operation of 261,000 km of sewage pipelines at the
end of last year, 110 percent longer than in 2002, the bureau
said.
Among the 559 cities nationwide monitored by the State
Environmental Protection Administration in 2006, 24 enjoyed
excellent air quality, or level one on the air quality index, and
325 reported fine air quality, or level two.
In Beijing, where the Summer Olympic Games will be held in
August next year, the environment watchdog reported improvement in
air quality, saying they monitored 241 days of level-one or
level-two air quality last year.
City environmental protection bureau spokesman Du Shaozhong said
earlier they would continue to make improvement and were sure to
reach the target of 245 days of excellent or fine air quality this
year.
But much work has to be done in cleaning up the air as 210
cities are still suffering from light or worse air pollution that
ranged from level three to level five.
(Xinhua News Agency October 7, 2007)