A special train will collect garbage along the Qinghai-Tibet railway every week to protect the plateau environment.

Other measures have also been set in place to allay fears Hoh Xil, a nature reserve for endangered Tibetan antelopes, is under threat from the 1,142-kilometer railway which begins trial operation on July 1.

"Waste water discharge is banned along the railway," said Liu Xinduo, a senior engineer with the environment control and labor sanitation institute of the Academy of Railway Sciences.

Currently, disposing facilities have been built at 15 sites along the railway to treat waste water through means of bio-chemistry, electrochemistry and oxidation, Liu said.

The carriages are equipped with garbage collecting systems, which can compact refuse, said Ma Baocheng, deputy general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company.

"All the garbage collected in train cars will be carried to Golmud or Lhasa for disposal," he said. "We have installed vacuum equipment to gather excrement in toilets and special facilities for gathering all kinds of waste on the train," Ma said.

Ma said his company has designated a special protection belt along the railway to reduce the contamination of the environment to a minimum.

China began constructing the railway in 2001 with cost of 26.2 billion yuan (US$3.16 billion). The Chinese government expects the project to boost Tibet's social and economic development, helping local residents to improve their living standards.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2006)