A RECENT investigation report about construction waste dumpsites said that Shenzhen’s existing six dumpsites can only continue to receive waste for another six months, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

    The fatal landslide caused by an over-filled dumpsite in Guangming New Area last year led to a citywide assessment of dumpsites and slopes. The report said that the city might not have enough places to put construction waste, especially with the major construction of Metro lines in the following years.

    There are six in-service dumpsites in the city and 13 sites have been shut after being deemed full or dangerous. The large-scale assessment also evaluated 13 daily-waste dumpsites and 119 smaller landfills.

    The final report said that 53 sites are considered safe and 58 met basic safety standards. Another site that is managed by the city’s water affairs department was not assessed.

    The news article said Shenzhen only generated 9.5 million cubic meters of construction waste in 2007, but the amount increased drastically between 2013 and 2015, with 36 million cubic meters of construction waste created each year.

    During the city’s initial development, construction waste was used for land reclamation, but with the construction of Metro lines, more construction waste is being generated each year.

    Shenzhen plans to build 16 Metro lines with a total length of 585.2 kilometers. Each kilometer of Metro line generates as much as 4,533 truckloads of waste.

    The largest construction waste dumpsite, the Bujiuwo Dumpsite near the border of Nanshan District and Longhua New Area, receives around 4,500 trucks of dirt every day. The dumpsite is located less than a kilometer from a residential area.

    Residents are concerned about the safety of dumpsites after the landslide in Guangming New Area that killed at least 77.

    Hu Wenbo, originally from Hunan Province, lives in an urban village near the Bujiuwo Dumpsite. He, like many other residents from the village, is worried that the dumpsite will collapse like the one in Guangming.

    According to Hu, some residents moved after the Guangming tragedy. Hu complained that roads near the area get extremely muddy during the rainy season and the air is filled with dust during dry days.

    The Bujiuwo Dumpsite is being renovated to safely hold more dirt. A deputy director from the project’s assessment organization, Wang Ping, said the renovations are being carried out mainly to drain the site.

    “Ninety percent of landslides were caused by water at the bottom of a site,” said Wang. The project will first drain water before filling the drained area with dirt. (Zhang Qian)