China: Clifford Coonan reports from Chongqing in Sichuan province on how China is killing itself with pollution.
The toxic chromium waste dump is like the surface of some blasted planet, with pools of yellow liquid lying around looking for all the world like the blood of aliens in a 1950s science fiction movie. It looks like hell.
Wu Zhiling, a young Chinese woman in a shocking pink jacket, is moving through the bright green toxic dump on a hill overlooking the Jialing river, a tributary of the mighty Yangtze river, stretches of which are fast becoming the worst environmental blackspots in the New China.
The smell is powerful, although not so strong today as the rain has kept it down, but I feel a headache starting as I follow Ms Wu, an environmental activist with the Chongqing Green Volunteer League, across the foul site.
"People used to walk across this chemical waste like it was nothing. We were able to tell them just how hazardous it is," she says in the thick dialect of this part of the western Sichuan province.
Since it was first built seven years ago, the dump is poisoning everything around it in this grimy industrial suburb of Chongqing, which is China's fourth largest city, although by some estimates, which take in the municipal area, it's the biggest city in the world with over 30 million people.
En route to the plant we pass through miles and miles of hulking factories.
A good 10 minutes before you arrive at the plant you can smell industrial effluent from somewhere, possibly a nearby pesticide company.
Everything is rundown, bleak. This is the dirty underbelly of China's remarkable economic boom.
"People generally have a very poor understanding of environmental issues, so what we really need is to raise people's awareness," she says.
"We try to spread our propaganda among the children, who can influence their parents. We get them to tell their parents that no matter how poor they are, no matter how hard your life has been, you shouldn't make your children suffer."
On a World Bank list, 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, and the country produces an estimated 60 billion tons of polluted water every year.
The central government has introduced efforts to try to stop the destruction of the environment and is pushing sustainable development. It has spent billions on trying to clean up pollution problems, but China's sheer size and widespread corruption at local level means the money often does not make it to the right places or is too little too late.
A determined woman, Ms Wu is not afraid to fight her corner in a world dominated by bullying men in leather jackets who try to swat her away. She was born in the nearby district of Chukou, one of Chongqing's poorest districts, studied science at Chongqing University before setting up her own company. Now she has dedicated herself full-time to the job of protecting her local environment.
"I do research on the environment and organise volunteers. We're doing more and more work on community interaction. The gap between rich and poor is getting quite serious. The environment problem is not only to do with pollution, it's also an economic issue."
Gui Laixin and her toddler daughter, Zhou Xinyu, are standing on their balcony which overlooks the toxic waste. Cooking rings and various woks and pots are arranged in a row along the wall.
The chromium waste stands out a lurid green against the black earth. Some of the waste has been covered over with black iron ore dust to make it look less shocking.
"We've only been living here in this house for a couple of months, but I've lived in the district for ages," says the young mother.
"Everyone knows this is highly toxic but we had to move here; they were demolishing everything to make way for more factories and the railway, and it's hard to find somewhere to live. It didn't seem all that dangerous to us and we're all healthy. Though we do know of people who have touched the stuff and their flesh has rotted through to the bone. If you go around it, it's okay. We don't let the children go in there."
The waste comes from the Victory Chemical Factory, outside which a banner proudly proclaims: "Our quality goal is 100 per cent customer satisfaction."
In a glass display case there are scores of pictures of the factory's most outstanding workers and Communist Party members, who are commended for their great party spirit and for overcoming difficulties related to reform.
We are stopped by guards from exploring further, and have to turn back. A sign nearby says: "Good news! Fresh fish from the Jialing river - 20 yuan a pound."
No one is buying.
Ms Wu's organisation is made up of a couple of dozen members and around 100 supporters. The work is voluntary, and she barely subsists off the proceeds of a property sale. A couple of foundations have noticed the Green Volunteer League's work, and she is hopeful that next year they will have funding.
Tang Liangwei is a spokesman for the Pingshangshe locality, a fresh-faced man, with glasses and a red jacket. We are talking outside his shop, behind which he has a small restaurant.
He says how farmers used to grow vegetables near the dump but the pollution wrecked the produce.
"There were lots of yellow dots on the vegetables. People outside this area know when the vegetables come from here - they know by all the yellow dots," he says, smiling ruefully at this.
"But if we don't eat our vegetables, what can we eat?"
As Mr Tang talks, one grizzled bystander lifts his trouser leg to show me a lesion which he says is from the waste.
He used to work in the factory until his skin came into contact with the chemicals. He says he scratched it and it got serious.
Mr Tang says the state environmental protection agency has fined the company every year for the past 10 years.
"But it's useless to fine them because they just keep making the stuff. We support the work Ms Wu is doing for us, but unfortunately the result isn't very effective."
Under pressure, the government has given farmers 10,000 yuan, around €1,000, for lost vegetable production. This has to be divided between 300 people for three years' lost harvest. That hasn't even been fully paid out - there was one payment two years ago.
"Many people have swollen livers and there's a lot more cancer around here; liver and lung cancer. We've no money to move away. I don't know if we can ever get rid of this stuff," he says.
We are joined by a member of the neighbourhood committee, Luo Shurong, a neatly dressed woman in a wine leather jacket. She says there has been a big rise in the number of cancer cases locally since the waste dump began.
"Even young people are getting cancer. Sometimes during the night it stinks so much it makes you want to vomit. For small diseases like colds the people get Chinese medicine, but the farmers can't afford treatment for the big diseases like cancer."
Ms Wu has often been compared to Erin Brockovich, the character played by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film of the same name based on the real-life story of an American environmental activist. She's a bit wary of the comparison, and insists she watched the movie a year after taking up her activism but says it did teach her some things about adopting a systematic approach.
She has organised a petition that gathered 1,000 signatures from locals, but they have no money to take the case to court.
"The saying here goes: the mountains are high and the emperor is very far away. People like us, you know, we can't clean up the Yangtze river, it's just too big a job. But we can work on the tributaries. We are a little hand trying to hold a big hand."