Chinese walker

Traditional Chinese medicine is used by 1.3 billion people in China, and many Chinese communities around the world. The country has 3,800 Chinese medical institutions of county level and above, which together employ around 400,000 people. Traditional Chinese pharmacies are common both in cities and the countryside, and sell huge numbers of treatments every day. Millions of hectares of land are used to grow millions of tonnes of raw materials for the production of medicines. There are almost 3,000 enterprises and 2,000 factories that produce Chinese medicine (including some that also manufacture western medicine). It is a huge industry, and the country`s medicinal resources provide many with the healthcare they need.

But China`s twentieth-century population explosion led to a massive increase in the use of these resources. The export of raw materials in exchange for foreign currency left the country’s natural resources in a terrible state. Outdated, improperly-used technology in medicine has also resulted in a huge degree of waste. As a result, the supply of raw materials for Chinese medicines has become ever tighter, with the use of some ingredients being banned for their own preservation. It is a hard industry to make sustainable.

Major causes of waste include the failure to harvest medicinal herbs on time, the damage caused by poor transportation conditions and losses due to heat, moisture, pests and mould. Poor manufacturing processes also result in herbs prepared for decoction that are too thick, or crystals that are too large, affecting the absorption of active components and squandering valuable resources.

There has already been much research and debate on the subject; policies have also been introduced on cultivating new sources of Chinese medicine. But still nothing has been done to reduce this staggering loss of resources. If effective measures are not taken soon, the plight of China`s endangered species will continue to worsen and environmental protection will be held back. Consumers` desire for “convenience”, the improper use of technology and corporate greed means the situation just keeps getting worse.

Pharmaceutical textbooks tell us that to extract active components efficiently; saturated solutions must be removed and replaced with new solutions for a second and third round of steeping. This increases the amount of work involved and the power consumed. It also lengthens the production cycle and increases costs. When faced with a choice between lowering costs and increasing extraction, the majority of enterprises opt to save money. As a result, huge quantities of active components are thrown away with the “dregs” of the production process – and the quality of the medicine is reduced. This is one reason why mass-produced medicines are not as effective as ones made to order.

A lot of waste is caused by preparations that use only one active ingredient or only one type of ingredient. In some cases, a volatile component may be obtained through distillation, while another water-soluble component is discarded. Granulated preparations have been tested and found not to contain the active components of their raw materials, which have in fact been discarded during the manufacturing process.

Many manufacturers also only extract one chemical from their raw materials, which results in a colossal waste of resources. For instance, companies that manufacture for export extract US$13 million worth of ephedrine from 30,000 tonnes of ephedra annually, 10 times the amount that is used in traditional Chinese medicine. And liquorice root is a similar case. It is clear that the environmental damage caused has little to do with the plants` traditional use in Chinese medicine.

Another Chinese medicine, recommended for anti-malarial treatments by the World Health Organisation, has a huge market. But once the necessary component has been extracted, antibiotic components are thrown out with the “waste”. Over 5,000 tonnes are wasted annually. The use of resources in Chinese medicine needs to be overseen by a central authority.

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