Garden expo is a wonder for Wuhan’s residents
Print Edition
THIS month the 10th China International Garden Expo takes place in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province. It is lush and surrounded by flowers — but for local residents it is a wonder to behold.
Zhang Huaqing, 70, strolls here with his wife every day. To him and many local residents, the fresh air and clean water are beyond imagination as the original site of the expo had been a landfill for almost two decades.
“The sewage flooded everywhere with strong odor. In summer, the mosquitoes were all over the sky and we always had to keep the windows and doors closed. Many times we had wanted to move away,” Zhang said.
The Jinkou landfill, covering 46 hectares, was opened in 1989 in suburban Wuhan as a result of the fast growth of the urban population and household refuse.
Before it was closed in 2005, the landfill had dealt with more than 5 million cubic meters of garbage, about 3.76 million tons. Even after its shutdown, environmental issues continued to surface, including gas pollution, liquid infiltration and damage to the landscape.
In 2012, Wuhan proposed restoring the site and rebuilding it as the main venue for the expo. The idea was approved.
Natural degradation would have taken decades to remove the heavy metals accumulated in the soil. To restore the wasteland more efficiently, the city began an “aerobic ecological restoration” project to alleviate long-term safety issues and better utilize the land.
Using such technology, 60 percent of the living waste was filled to biodegrade within two years, benefiting more than 100,000 residents nearby.
“The garden is now strewn with flowers, lawns and a pleasant smell rather than stink,” said 62-year-old Huang Yunlin, who used to work at the landfill. Huang now works at the expo.
An automatic system operates round the clock to process 200 cubic meters of methane into carbon dioxide every hour. At the same time, 110 cubic meters of polluted water are recycled to water the trees and flowers in the garden every day, according to Shao Fugen, who is in charge of the system.
In December 2015, Wuhan was given the C40 Cities Award in Paris for its successful restoration of Jinkou landfill.
The transformation of Jinkou is a mirror of the green application of Wuhan, which has a population of 10.9 million.
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