Floating garbage washed into China’s Yangtze River and clogged Three Gorges Dam in early August. The waste threatened a key floodgate on the world’s biggest dam.
Garbage is a continual issue in the area, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Garbage output during the country’s economic boom outpaced capacity to dispose of it. One stark illustration of the crisis: the average Chinese landfill only lasts for five years, compared to
U.S. and European landfills that have an average lifespan of 30 years.
The situation illustrates a growing problem in China – trash.
While China’s average production of trash ranks well below the United States, when calculated as a percentage per person, it is increasing at a faster rate in the country than elsewhere, the Journal reports. The average U.S. resident produces about 1,654 pounds of trash a year while the average Chinese resident produces about 287 pounds of trash each.
However, China produces 150 million tons of the 490 million tons of trash produced globally each year, the Journal reports.
And China is outpacing the average for increasing trash production by about 2 percent a year, according to Chinese researchers.
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