Yuhuan, a county-level city of Taizhou in East China's Zhejiang province was recently included in a national pilot program to promote the use of reclaimed water, according to local water conservancy authorities.

Six places in Zhejiang were included in the program, with the other five being Ningbo, Changxing, Pinghu, Keqiao and Yiwu. These places have been tasked with increasing the utilization rate of reclaimed water in the city to 25 percent by 2025.

Reclaimed water refers to water, household or industrial sewage, that are can be safely used after purification.

Despite being a coastal province, Zhejiang's water resources per capita stands at less than 1,500 cubic meters. The current utilization rate of reclaimed water in the province stands at 20.5 percent.

Ningbo is a pioneer in this regard in Zhejiang. The city has 32 centralized domestic sewage treatment plants with a daily treatment capacity of about 2.63 million metric tons. Authorities are now planning to allocate about 16.1 billion yuan ($2.48 billion) to lifting the utilization rate of reclaimed water in the city to 35 percent during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.