Xu Nanping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Xinhua sewage treatment and film filtering technologies have successfully made the 32,000-tonnes of waste water discharged by Jiangsu Oji Paper Co., Ltd per day into reclaimed water, industrial salt and dried mud.

It took Xu and his fellow researchers from Nanjing Technological University nine months to develop the technology and design the equipment. Xu is also deputy governor of east China's Jiangsu Province and head of the provincial department of science and technology.

The treatment project has operated successfully since Jan. 2014. The paper plant planned to discharge waste water into the Yellow Sea via a pipeline in 2012, but the project was forced to be canceled due to protests of coastal residents over environmental concerns.

The quality of the reclaimed water is better than water taken directly from the Yangtze River and even tap water in terms of major quality indices, said Wang Chaohui, director of the area's environmental protection bureau.