In China’s murky waters, global sewage firms seek rewards.
Global sewage and water treatment firms are eyeing opportunities in an unsavoury place: a growing pile of waste in China, the world’s most populous nation.
The country has been for years battling contamination from fertiliser run-offs, heavy metals and untreated sewage.
A survey in 2015 showed nearly two-thirds of China’s underground water and a third of its surface water was unfit for human contact.
To reverse this, China has pledged to lay 126,000 kilometres of new sewage pipes by 2020, enough to circle the globe three times, and raise urban wastewater treatment by 50 million cubic metres a day, equal to 20,000 Olympic-size pools.
“Right now the problem of wastewater from agriculture and the countryside is very serious and wastewater treatment work is a weak link,” said Tong Weidong, vice-chairman of the legal work commission of China’s parliament.
Recently, there were reports of villages dumping sewage into the reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest power station spanning the Yangtze River in central Hubei province.
Local officials will be forced to improve sewage capacity under new legislation that make them directly responsible for water quality.
“The market is massive,” said Wong-Jin Yong, China CEO for Emefcy, which estimates the potential market opportunity in Beijing and nearby provinces at over $1 billion.
Foreign players have been in China for a while, such as Veolia that has water projects across the country, but the focus on a large-scale clean-up has gained impetus recently.