Sanitation Updates

A big housing development project is bringing ecological sanitation toilets that do not require water, to a water-scarce municipality in the northern region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The largest urban project of its kind in the PRC, the project also boasts of an onsite eco-station complete with greywater treatment and thermal composting of organic materials. Will there be enough takers to ensure the sustainability of this project and the concept of ecotown?

The Erdos Eco-Town Project (EETP) - a collaborative enterprise of the Dongsheng District of the Erdos Municipal government, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and a private real estate developer (Daxing Co. Ltd.)- is the world’s first major attempt to build an entire town with onsite ecological sanitation (ecosan).

Read more: ADB, Apr 2008

BEIJING, Feb 28 (Reuters) - China heightened pressure on polluters on Thursday, passing legislation that allows for stiff fines against heads of companies that foul its scarce water resources.

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WASHINGTON DC — In 2010 China will embrace “toilet-to-tap” water treatment technology, predicts Xia Siqing, an environmental science professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and former visiting professor at Arizona State University, according to a Feb 20 story on Environmental Science Technology Online News.

Professor Xia is experimenting and testing “toilet-to-tap” purification techniques with a small-scale 105-gallons-per-day (400-liter) treatment plant housed in the university’s College Environmental Science and Engineering lab building.

Although Xia insists the reclaimed water is pure enough to be used for kidney dialysis, washing carbon-chips, and replenishing drinking-water supplies, according to the article, the water is actually reserved for use in laboratory experiments and local irrigation.

A second demonstration project of Xia‘s “toilet-to-tap” purification system is scheduled for the Shanghai World Expo to be held in 2010.

Read More - Water Tech Online

HONG KONG (23 Jan 200 — The Chinese government unveiled a detailed plan on Tuesday to limit pollution in China’s lakes by 2010 and return them to their original state by 2030.The State Council, China’s cabinet, ordered strict regulation of the release of wastewater, the closing of heavily polluting factories near lakes, the improvement of sewage treatment facilities and strict limits on fish farms, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Read more: Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 23 Jan 2008 

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) — The Chinese government has launched a program to improve sanitation and hygiene facilities using green technologies in rural schools. The program, jointly initiated by ministries of education, finance and agriculture, would utilize biogas and solar energy technologies in constructing toilets, drinking water and garbage treatment facilities.

Most students in primary and middle schools in the country’s poor rural areas are still using open-air lavatories with poor sewage treatment systems or suffering from a lack of such facilities, said Wang Xuming, spokesman with the Ministry of Education.

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