SHANGHAI
— A huge demonstration against a planned waste incinerator in one of
eastern China’s biggest cities turned violent on Saturday with
protesters overturning and setting fire to police cars, leaving at least
10 demonstrators and 29 police officers injured, according to Xinhua,
the official state-run news agency.
The
authorities in the city of Hangzhou said on Sunday that they had
cleared an expressway that was blocked by the rally a day earlier, and
that 700 officers had been deployed there to maintain order. A city
official also said that construction on the incinerator, in the city’s
Yuhang district, would not go forward without public support and proper
legal approvals.
The
protest is the latest indication that China’s increasingly affluent
residents are willing to challenge the government on health and
environmental issues. Over the past few years, similar demonstrations
have taken place in Shanghai, Shenzhen and other major cities aimed at
halting the construction of chemical factories or waste incinerators
that residents believe will threaten the health and safety of their
families.
China’s
state-run news media said 18 people were arrested last month in another
large demonstration against a chemical plant in the city of Maoming, in
southern Guangdong Province.
Big
cities are rushing to build waste incinerators to keep pace with the
country’s rapid growth and a surge in household waste. Growing awareness
of the pollutants released around such plants has led to large
protests.
While
some expensive waste incinerators are environmentally sound, many
less-expensive ones release heavy pollutants, like dioxin and mercury,
that persist in the atmosphere.
The
Hangzhou government told state-run news media that it understood the
concerns of the protesters but that the existing four waste incinerators
could not keep up with the growing garbage.
A version of this article appears in print on May 12, 2014, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Protest of Planned Incinerator Turns Violent in Chinese City
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