China is facing many problems as a result of a developing economy. One problem is the pace of urbanization. With the Chinese hukou system in place, many rural impoverished workers migrate to cities in search of labor intensive, low wage job opportunities. China’s population problem is often accompanied by issues already prevalent in major Chinese cities, such as China’s growing garbage problem.
Everyday, Beijing creates on average 18,400 tons of garbage. If Beijing used standard dump trucks to transport this trash out of the city, the line of dump trucks would make an entire loop around Beijing’s Third Ring Road. Beijing’s trash management system can only handle around 10,300 tons of trash per day. This leaves approximately eight thousand tons of trash unaccounted for. Everyday. And Beijing’s trash output is growing at a rate of 8 percent per year.
Everyday, Shanghai creates on average more than twenty thousand tons of garbage. If all of this garbage was collected, around every two weeks Shanghai would be able to fill the Jin Mao Tower — an eighty-eight story building that upon completion in 1998 was the tallest in China.
However, this garbage problem is not merely limited to cities. It also plagues China’s rural countryside. Nearly six hundred thousand rural village governments do not have any form of environmental protection infrastructure. The lack of government funding in these small villages has done little to change their attitude towards garbage.
It isn’t just the impact of pollution on these areas’ harvests that is worrisome, it is also the growing number of cancer villages that are appearing across eastern China. One area in Guangdong province serves as home to around four hundred Chinese citizens. To solve their garbage problem, behind their town, the citizens created a “mountain of trash.” Within the last ten years, twelve people in this town have died of cancer.
The Huaihe River, which flows through the Anhui, Jiangsu, and Henan provinces is so polluted that even one area which has been protected for the past ten years still can barely sustain a fish population. These fish suffer from spiral shaped backbones, extra layers of scales, and various other defects stemming from the amount of pollution that exists in the water.
China needs to clean up its act, and fast. The people are relying on the government to assist them. The Chinese government doesn’t even necessarily have to help through financial means — simply a better program for recycling used goods, or clearer explanations of existing programs can help resolve this issue.