The industrial city of Shenyang, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, has announced plans to build 12 more sewage treatment plants to curb urban water pollution in the next eight years.

All of the planned sewage treatment plants will be completed by the year 2010, according to an official with the city environmental protection bureau.

The official said that upon completion of the 12 projects, Shenyang will have a total of 15 sewage treatment plants with a total daily handling capacity of 1.85 million tons.

The city also plans to build 200 more plants to recycle waste water during this year and next year, bringing the total number of its recycling plants to 700. The plants will have an aggregate daily recycling capacity of 200,000 tons of waste water.

Statistics show that Shenyang discharges 1.24 million tons of sewage on a daily basis, mainly from the daily use of its 4.8 million residents and its 441 key industrial enterprises.

Currently, Shenyang has three sewage treatment plants, which treat 600,000 tons of sewage daily. Ninety-nine percent of the treated industrial waste water has met the standards set by the environmental authorities.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2003)