China's ocean waste surges 27% in 2018: ministry
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China dumped a total of 200.7 million cubic meters of waste into its coastal waters in 2018, a 27% rise on the previous year and the highest level in at least a decade, the country's environment ministry said on Tuesday.
The majority of the waste was dumped in the delta regions of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers, both major industrial zones on China's eastern coast, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said.
"At the moment, there are some clear problems with the work on the marine ecological environment, with some regions not showing a lot of awareness or paying sufficient attention, and lacking strong initiative and dedication," Huo Chuanlin, deputy director of the MEE's marine environment department, said at a briefing in Beijing.
Environmental groups have expressed concern that China, desperate to clean up its own rivers, is dumping increasing amounts of trash in its seas instead.
Read more: https://www.metro.us/news/the-big-stories/chinas-ocean-waste-surges-27-2018-ministry
(Metro New York)
