Major protest in Guangzhou to oppose waste incinerator

(TibetanReview.net, Nov24, 2009)  More than 1,200 residents in southern Chinese city of Guangzhou protested outside Guangzhou Municipal Government building on Nov 22, opposing plans for a major garbage incinerator that they said would endanger their health and the environment, reported Reuters Nov 22. The report cited Wen Yunchao, a prominent mainland blogger and rights activist, as saying the protesters had demanded the resignation of the city's party deputy general secretary Lu Zhiyi.

The residents were reported to fear that the Panyu waste incineration plant, which would handle 2,000 metric tons of trash a day, might endanger the health of residents like a similar incinerator built near Guangzhou's Likeng village in 2005.

"The residents don't trust the government's guarantees after reports revealed that the incidence of cancer had risen dramatically in Likeng," the report quoted Wen as saying.

A public opinion poll by the provincial social research and study center in Guangdong province, China's manufacturing heartland, was reported to show that nearly 92 percent of residents believed the project would seriously harm their health and the environment, while more than 97 percent opposed the construction of the plant.

Recently, a proposed multi-billion dollar oil refinery in the ecologically rich Nansha district just downstream from Guangzhou along the Pearl River was relocated to a less populated area in western Guangdong after a major public uproar, the report noted.