An environmental impact assessment should serve as legal evidence of the health of a project. But since a negative environmental assessment, flashed in the media, could deal a blow to the reputation and credibility of a project, the Shenzhen authorities are reluctant to make it public.

The lack of public participation in environmental impact assessments is a vital flaw in cases like the Xiaping landfill. In a public project, public supervision and technical assessment are normally separated; the former is conducted by the construction department which is not in charge of environmental impact assessment.

Soliciting public opinions often depends on simply publishing (or posting online) questionnaires, which can hardly guarantee real public participation. In comparison, a public hearing would do a better job of clearing the distrust between the public and environmental department officials.

But neither incineration nor landfills can fundamentally improve the over-burdened garbage disposal systems of many Chinese cities, especially the mega ones such as Beijing, which generates more than 18,000 tons of household garbage a day.

Should the Xiaping landfill’s operation be suspended, the Shenzhen environment bureau would have to relocate it in accordance with public demand and professional advice. More importantly, reducing unnecessary daily waste, which requires an efficient garbage classification and utilization system, remains the key to efficient waste disposal.

For instance, local governments should encourage individual people, as major waste generators, to sort their garbage at source into kitchen waste, and recyclable and non-recyclable wastes. The local governments also have to optimize the use of transportation and disposal methods, and discourage the use and production of use-and-throw products like tableware and excessive packaging.

When it comes to supervision, all environmental impact assessments must be made public, because that is what the law demands. Besides, a legal accountability mechanism should be put in place to deal with cases in which earlier assessments have failed to be incisive and thus made matters worse. And since every step in the waste disposal system is interconnected, governments should seek public opinion and take remedial measures instead of playing hide-and-seek with the people.  

The author is a researcher at Nature University, an environmental protection NGO in Beijing. The article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily’s reporter Cui Shoufeng.