China city plans to use seawater to flush toilets ( 2003-08-14 14:42) (Agencies)
Residents of China's famous brewery city of Qingdao will be flushing their
toilets with seawater in the near future.
An area of 800,000 square meters in Laoshan District of the coastal
city in Shandong Province will be plumbed with seawater pipes later this
year as it struggles with a shortage of freshwater, China Ocean News
reports.
The project has a designed annual capacity of 850,000 cubic meters of
seawater, the newspaper says.
The Institute of Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization of Seawater under
the State Oceanic Administration has made breakthroughs in seawater
purification, disinfection and biochemical treatment, and specified
standards for water quality and draining, paving the way to use seawater
in toilets, says the report.
"Across China, freshwater is used to flush the toilets, which accounts
for 35 percent of the total volume of water for domestic purposes," Zhang
Yushan, an expert in the institute, is quoted as saying.
China's per capita freshwater resources are one quarter of the world's
average. Nearly 400 of China's 600-plus cities are short of water, particularly
in the more densely populated coastal areas.
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