Baiyin: China's 'copper city' strives to repair heavy metal-polluted land

Baiyin city, Gansu province, is well known as China's copper city for its huge copper output in China.

Dongdagou in the suburban area of Baiyin used to be the most severely polluted area due to heavy metals. Now it has become a clean and green area without sewage.

At the upper reach of the 7.8-km-long Dongdagou trench, where many smelting and chemical companies have settled, over 70,000 cubic meters of heavy metal-polluted sediments have been repaired or replaced.

A large amount of industrial waste has been cleaned up. Meanwhile, the newly-planted trees and grass will take up a space of 210,000 cubic meters.

 Li Zhengcang, director of the Baiyin environment protection bureau, said,"We have taken many actions to deal with the pollution problem, and a total of more than 43 million yuan ($6.93 million) was raised to explore the various measures in dealing with heavy metal pollution, including displacement and storage of waste residue and river diversion."

 The case of the copper city serves as a demonstration model of Gansu province in preventing and dealing with heavy metal pollution.

According to a report released by the Gansu provincial government suggests, with the aim of tackling difficulties in treating heavy metal pollution at a faster pace, the inland underdeveloped provinces where large-scale nonferrous metals smelting and processing corporations are concentrated have initiated 17 key projects to prevent and control heavy metal pollution in 2014 alone, with an investment of over 1 billion yuan.