Villagers protest construction of incinerator in southern China

Villagers protest Chinese incinerator

GUANGZHOU, China — About 100 villagers on Monday protested the construction of a garbage incinerator in southern China, alleging several residents have already become sick from pollution from another trash-burning facility in the area.

Waste disposal is becoming a contentious issue as crowded China tries to find new places to dump garbage. Citizens have become more environmentally conscious, more worried about their health and property — and more willing to protest.

Monday’s protesters came from the village of Likeng, where people have long complained that an incinerator in the area was causing cancer and other illnesses. They were angry that the government had begun building another incinerator in the village, in the northern part of the booming city of Guangzhou.

Carrying small white protest signs, the 100 or so demonstrators tried to march close to the Guangdong provincial government’s headquarters. But scores of police boxed them in and then corralled them off with crime scene tape on the sidewalk across from the government building.

“The government refuses to listen to the people. We don’t want another incinerator because we know the one we have now is killing people,” said a protester who would only give her surname, Chen. “At night, we don’t dare open our windows because the air is so bad.”

The government has repeatedly said the incinerator was safe. An official who observed Monday’s protest told the AP the villagers’ complaints were being considered.

“The city will handle this matter in a proper way. We just hope everyone will be calm and reasonable,” said the official, who would only give his surname, Hu, and declined to say which department he worked for.

On Sunday, about 400 people protested the construction of another incinerator in the Gaoming district of Foshan, a city next to Guangzhou, the state-run Southern Daily newspaper reported Monday.

Demonstrators have also been active in Guangzhou’s southern Panyu district, where officials recently decided to delay an incinerator project so that they could do more environmental tests and public consultation.