For many Beijing residents, dreams of living in a green community are slowly becoming a reality.

Xia Lei, a worker from the city's eastern Tongzhou District, said the capital has become much cleaner in recent years with the introduction of grasslands, garbage and waste water recycling systems.

"The snow in early January was still white in the fields a month later while in the past it quickly became dirty," Xia said.

And the water of the nearby Tonghui River has become clearer in recent years, Xia added.

Xia's sentiments were echoed by officials from the Beijing Gaobeidian Waste Water Treatment Plant.

"The successful operation of the city's waste water treatment system is turning Beijing into a clean, beautiful and well-equipped international metropolis," said Yang Xiangping, general manager of the plant.

The city currently has four sewage plants and is expected to build 12 more within 10 years, according to Yang.

Treated water from the factories is being used to water grasslands and trees, Yang added.

Tree-planting has been fast-tracked in Beijing in recent years.

About 2,700 hectares of trees were planted last year, more than those planted in the previous six years.

"We will spare no efforts to add more green space to the capital and have set a target to expand Beijing's vegetation coverage to 50 per cent by the year 2010," Beijing Mayor Liu Qi promised late last year.

Besides increasing the city's green land, more environmentally friendly measures have been taken recently including strict controls on exhaust emissions and the use of clean energy resources.

Air pollution was once Beijing's biggest environmental problem partly caused by the use of coal in the winter for heating.

However, this winter natural gas was introduced to replace the traditional fuel.

Since February 1998, Beijing's TV stations and newspapers have been releasing daily air quality monitoring results.

The air quality level in Beijing reached Grade Three or better for more than 300 days last year, according to statistics from Beijing Environment Protection Bureau, one of the best in the past two decades.

Officials from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said current measures being taken in the capital include cleaning up polluted rivers, building a green belt on the outskirts of the city, phasing out diesel-fueled buses, introducing cleaner energy sources, and closing polluting industrial plants.

Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympic Games has accelerated the acceptance of green issues. The International Olympics Committee made the quality of the environment a key point in evaluating cities that want to host the Games in the 1980s.

China initiated its environmental protection industry in the 1970s and it has expanded significantly in recent years due to the growing economy and people's increasing interest in green issues.

So far, more than 9,000 companies are engaged in the green industry, sources with the China Association of Environmental Protection Industry said.

"Environmental protection is not merely an undertaking of government; it is done for the people and by the people," said Liao Xiaoyi, a known environmental campaigner, who won the Sophie Prize in Norway for environmental protection last year.

"Environmental protection in the 21st century should be a popular activity, and become a concern of all families and communities," Liao said.

There are more than 50 non-government environmental protection organizations in Beijing, including the Green Angel Project which enlists thousands of primary school students to help build a "green Beijing." The children are encouraged to sort trash into different categories and use recycled writing paper.