Chinese walker

Popular belief has it that obesity only affects wealthier societies where food is plentiful: the curse of the developed world epitomized by hulking Americans that struggle to order their king-size Big Mac, French Fries and Coke without breaking sweat.

Obesity is no longer exclusive to the developed world

The reality is a very different. Obesity and its associated diseases – diabetes, hypertension and kidney diseases – respect neither wealth nor class and strike instead into the heart of every society where there is easy access to convenience food, low physical activity and ubiquitous advertisements for sugar-fat-salt-rich food.

Heart disease, stroke, cancer and other chronic diseases associated with poor diet and low exercise have now made serious inroads into the lives of people in poor and middle-income nations. In total, these accounted for 80% (28 million) of the cases of chronic illness in 2005, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which fears that a further 388 million people will die from such illnesses over the next ten years.

Photo by Malias

Across South East Asia, cases of chronic disease are also high, accounting for 54% of all deaths during 2005. The situation in Thailand is particularly serious, says the WHO, which estimates that the number of obese 5-to-12 year olds increased from 12.2% to 15.6% in just two years. Obesity is generally associated with older age groups, but has yet to permeate into poorer areas where the price of convenience food associated with the epidemic is prohibitive.

China, too, has an emerging epidemic with one or two pockets of high incidence. Overall, obesity levels range from under 5% to almost 20% in some areas, according to regional surveys conducted during 2003. Most concerning, however, is high prevalence among the young. In Wuhan Province 8.9% of 10-12 year-olds were classified as obese by the study. Some areas, such as Beijing, also suggest that there is a gender perspective to the epidemic. In the capital more than 10% of 10-12 year old boys were obese – more than three times the rate for girls in the same study.

Responsibilities are divided

The existence of a genetic predisposition to obesity would provide a straight-forward explanation for the world`s growing stock of rotund individuals, but the precise causes of obesity are multiple.

Changing diets have clearly contributed to the development of the pandemic, driven by the move towards food processing that relies heavily on high injections of sugar and salt. Recent research by The Thai Health Promotion Foundation, for example, found that more than 90% of its sample of 700 pre-packed foods to contain excessive levels of sugar, fat and salt – a cocktail that can lead to diabetes and hypertension as well as obesity.

Choice, of course, enables informed individuals to avoid (or moderate their consumption of) foods that are known to have damaging health effects, but bad labeling, the study suggests, does not help in the decision-making process. Just one third of the sample in Thailand, for example, managed to provide adequate nutritional information on their packaging or list ingredients. Where available, say researchers, labels also tended to use small fonts and present information in a way that is difficult to understand. At least part of the blame, therefore, lies with the food industry itself.

Photo by Malingering

Children are most at risk

For now, young Thais have refrained from overindulgence in burgers and chips on account of taste. But tastes are changing and so is the food industry. Pizza Hut (aka Pizza Company in Thailand) has already rewritten its menu to include a Tum Yum Kung (spicy prawn soup) variety. Western convenience food, which contains 3 or 4 times more fat, sugar and salt than healthier local Thai snacks, is now thought to pose one of the greatest dangers to a country of “snackers.”

Catering to oriental taste in order to boost market share is only one dimension of the corporate weaponry. Intensive marketing activity now mostly targets children and changing cultural values now mean that a visit to see Ronald McDonald has become a symbol of growing affluence and status. The price of a Big Mac in Bangkok (the equivalent of USD 1.5 or Baht 60) may cover the food costs of one meal for a family of four, but younger Thais are prepared to splash out on junk-food if it means impressing friends – especially girlfriends. Similar trends are noted throughout many of China`s larger central and eastern metropolises. Shopping malls in Cambodia also house fashionable western eateries that only the privileged can afford.

Obesity ought not to be a problem affecting children, but cases as young as 3 are not exceptional. And for those that then become obese adults the risks (particularly in developing countries) have alarming potential – an increasing susceptibility to illness coupled with reliance on fragile health care systems that may not be able to offer or afford treatment. In China, there is only a very basic social safety net and hospitals are run like profit-making concerns: Only those that can afford treatment receive treatment

Child obesity is expected to soar worldwide according to the International journal of Pediatric obesity, and could start to erode health gains in many countries. Both morbidity and cases of premature death are expected to rise over the next decade costing the economies of China, India and Russian billion of dollars according to the WHO. China alone will lose $558 billion over the next 10 years of its national income due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. And other important Asian economies – Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and others – are fast reaching western levels of development and consumption.

Photo by Robad0b

An incomplete response

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Dialogue consumption, development, Food, Health

The place of food in the moral, political and monetary economy has changed radically in the last fifty years – and the result has been a vast and potentially catastrophic loss of equilibrium. The global food producer, who can move from country to country, acquiring land, importing agricultural machinery and fertiliser, and selling his product in the global market, poses a threat to the environment of a kind that has never been seen before.

And the global food distributor, who can descend like Wal-Mart on the periphery of any town anywhere in the world, with a tempting array of cheap food wrapped in plastic, poses a threat to local economies and lifestyles comparable to that posed by a tribe of belligerent invaders.

Those vast disequilibriating forces did not come about because someone planned them. They arose by %26lsquo;an invisible hand`, from the developments in international trade, agricultural technology and food processing that have occurred since the end of the Second World War. Nevertheless, there has been little or no effort from our political elites to come to terms with, still less to moderate, their adverse effects, and the perceived indifference of our governments to forces which are not merely changing every aspect of our lives but also impacting on the lives and environments of people all over the globe, is one reason for the growing movements of protest against the global food economy.

Much that people lament in the decline of traditional farming results, however, not from the global food economy as such, but from the local imposition of regulations that only global producers and distributors can comply with. The strange illusion that food is unsafe until wrapped in plastic has promoted an explosion of absurd regulations designed to quell the anxieties of our increasingly risk-averse populations.

But, by avoiding the small-scale risks associated with local food, people expose themselves to the large-scale risks associated with obesity, environmental degradation and the weakening of the human immune system. It is not enough to protect people from this or that infectious disease that is transmitted through the food chain. For diseases transmitted through the food-chain are for the most part diseases against which people acquire immunity, as all who have suffered from traveller`s tummy will know. Present policies towards diseases of the digestive tract may actually be making children more vulnerable to those diseases in the long-run and also requiring ever greater efforts to ensure that we are presented from birth to death with the kind of sterilised food that our weakened immune systems can deal with. This is fine in the short term; but one major hiccup, in the form of war, epidemic or economic disruption, and the result could be a large-scale disaster.

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Dialogue consumption, development, Food, Health

Global meat consumption is predicted to double by 2020. Much of this increase will come from China, where the growing middle class is demanding more meat and other animal products. As a result, China is now rushing helter-skelter down the path blazed by giant agribusiness corporations in western nations. Once, the animals we raised went out and gathered things we could not or would not eat. Cows ate grass, chickens pecked at worms or seeds. Then we ate their flesh, or their eggs, or drank their milk, thus adding to the amount of food available to us.

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Dialogue Animal_welfare, consumption, Food, Health, Pollution

In this superficial age of ours, a swathe of beauty parlours has opened to meet the cosmetic needs of the adult population. But few people know that while the artificially produced beautiful people walk down our streets, the food products in our markets are also undergoing cosmetic treatments.

Wenling City in Zhejiang Province is famous all over the country for its prawns. The prawns from that area are yellowy pink, and look delicious, but behind this delicious exterior lies a dark secret. A local manager involved in the prawn processing business told me that the processing treatment is quite simple.

First the prawns are cooked in boiling water, then they are dried and peeled. The most important step of this process is the cooking. The colour of the prawns depends on the length of cooking time, so it is important to get it right.

The secret, though, is to add some red powder to the cooking pot, and to keep adding it during the cooking process. The colour stays on the prawn after the drying process for two or three months. The prawn producers in the area all use this red powder. According to various investigations, this red powder is called %26lsquo;Liangcanghua Essence`, commonly known as %26lsquo;acid red 73`. It is mostly used as a wood dye, and is forbidden as a food additive because it can cause cancer.

Pinglu County in Shandong Province is famous for its fruit. A few illegal canning businesses buy cheap, unripe strawberries, peaches and apricots and put them into cans. Central Television Station`s %26lsquo;Weekly Quality Report` showed how in Xinchao Canning Factory, the workers would pour onto strawberries chemicals to stop rotting and the growth of bacteria, then they would bottle the strawberries, and so as to make them look fresh, the workers would pour a red liquid into the bottles, a carmine colour, so that the green, unripe strawberries are transformed into red strawberries. And the method of turning white peaches into yellow canned peaches is even more horrifying. First the white peaches are put in a steel vat, and the skin is removed using industrial caustic soda, then they are soaked in lemon yellow and sunset yellow dyes and boiled, so that the white peaches turn a yellow colour. After that, sweeteners are added, the cans are labelled and sent off all over the country.

The beautiful cakes that are made for Chinese New Year always look appealing. But the beautiful exterior often hides dangerous, illegal contents. A New Year Cake shop in Shanghai`s Pudong District fumigates its cakes with a sulphur powder to preserve their shop life, whitens them with industrial bleach, and even uses cheap industrial sodium hydrosulphite to make the cakes look fresh. According to a worker in this shop, they were not the only company to use sulphur powder and sodium hydrosulphite, many other factories have used them for some time.

Recently the Nanjing hygiene quality inspectors have banned all products from the %26lsquo;Haibawangjia Tianxia` Company, because it has been found that they have altered the dates of quick-freeze products that have passed their sell-by dates, and put them on the market again. It was found that this company would scrape off the old sell-by dates and replace them with new ones before trying to sell the products off again. For suspicious customers, there is now no difference between products that have no sell-by dates printed on them from those that do, as they can`t be sure that the sell-by dates have been tampered with. How can people eat these kinds of products with any peace of mind? And many supermarkets sell loose dumplings, mixing up the fresh ones with the out of date ones. The factories just put the old dumplings into new bags and send them off to the supermarkets to be sold, and no one is the wiser.

On 1 June, this kind of thing happened in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Seeing that the date on the 30,000 bottles of soft drinks had nearly arrived, the unscrupulous manager of the %26lsquo;Ketaolu` drink company decided to wipe the dates off using some kind of glue, then printed a new sell-by date that was a full thirteen months later than the old one.

Many customers wonder how it is that products that have passed their sell-by dates are not destroyed, but are instead returned to the manufacturer who then changes the dates and sells them again. Who is responsible for destroying products that have passed their sell-by dates? What have the relevant government bodies done about this situation?

There are many strange things that happen in food production. The Many Fresh Oranges drink processing company produces drinks that have no trace of real orange in them. What you find in the company`s factory is not oranges but nearly ten different kinds of sweeteners, flavourings additives and colourings. This was seen in April 2004 in their factory in Nanchang. The drink is just made from tap water and a great deal of additives that far exceed the maximum levels set by the government.

Even more worrying is the so-called %26lsquo;organic green tea` that purports to be of no danger to public health, but that in fact contain high levels of pesticides. The Xuanlang Tea Company of Shizi, Anhui Province, cultivates 20,000 mu (540 square kilometres) of tea. It is supposed to be a model for organic farming in China. A reporter from CCTV visited several tea farms in the locality and found that many farmers who had contracted land in the area were in fact using phosphate fertilisers, Jiaji 1605 and other such toxic agricultural chemicals. In the tea factory, the reporter found that the workers were adding glutinous rice powder to the tea, so as to make the thick, fresh tea leaves curl up. In the Number 3 Jingzhi Tea Company of Xuanlang it was discovered that the rice mixture sprayed on the tea was black. This meant that even the %26lsquo;dregs` of the tea could be sold for the same price as the proper tea.

There have been many suspicions about the dried milk pieces produced in China, with rumours that they contain no fresh milk. These rumours have damaged the domestic dairy industry. There has been a recent loss of trust in the safety of milk pieces. Many supermarkets have taken the product off their shelves or have demanded to see authenticity documents from the manufacturers. All milk pieces have been removed from the shops in Chongqing, and in Guangzhou, the customers have demanded refunds for the milk pieces that they have bought.

Recently, Beijing`s Quality Inspection Department made an investigation into meat products and canned foods, and found that only 75% of the meat products met with the safety regulations. The main problem with the meat products was that they used high levels of benzoic acid. Half of the canned food didn`t meet with the regulations. Only 66.7% of tinned tomatoes met with the regulations. The largest problem here was the quality of the ingredients and the high levels of additives. On 6 August, the department announced the results of an investigation it made into drinks that use carbonic acid. It looked into 30 drinks produces by 29 Beijing companies, and found only 18 met with the regulations – that is a failure rate of 69%. During the investigation it was discovered that the levels of saccharomycete and sulphur dioxide were too high.

Jiangsu Province has recently investigated 543 cake manufacturers, and found that of 113 cakes tested, only 65 met with the regulations, which is a pass rate of just 57.5%. After that the Jiangsu Hygiene Department warned customers to take care when buying unpackaged food products.

In Hunan, there is a tradition of pickling vegetables in earthenware pots. There is a fish head dish cooked with these pickles that is particularly famous in this region. But a quality inspection team in Hunan`s Qiuyang City found in the Xiangbei Market, a factory whose 60 square metres of floor space was covered with more than 80 black plastic bags, and that in the salty water in which the vegetables were being pickled were floating dead black and white cockroach-like insects.

An inspection team of Beijing`s Haidian District investigated a private supplier of dried radishes, and found that 25 tonnes, or more than 1300 boxes, of %26lsquo;Qianjiang` dried radishes that were headed for Beijing`s expensive hotels had levels of formic acid that were 5 to 7 times higher than those allowed.

On 11 April, the National Quality Inspection Department announced that they had found four products that contained illegal quantities of brightening agents. These were: %26lsquo;Qinlaoda` flour produced by Xian`s Qinlaoda Food Company; %26lsquo;Meidian` noodles produced by Shanghai`s Meidian Company; %26lsquo;Fengtao` flour and %26lsquo;Fengtao` noodles produced by Nanjing`s Chuangxin Food Company. They also announced that a survey into white and brown sugar in 2004 found serious problems with the white sugar produced by Haikou`s Jingshan Sugar Company, Yunnan`s Fulong Sugar Company, Yunnan`s Xingfu Sugar Company, and Yunnan`s Bafang Sugar Company. The main causes for concern were the high levels of sulphur dioxide residues, insufficient levels of sucrose, high quantities of dirt and grit, and unsatisfactory labelling.

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Dialogue consumption, Food, Governance, Health

Perhaps the biggest difference between food in the West and in China is that Chinese people like to eat lots of little snacks whereas Westerners prefer one %26lsquo;main meal`. In the West, restaurants and fast food outlets produce standardised meals, where quantities are strictly regulated. But the Chinese have a long history of eating snacks. Traditionally an agricultural country, when farmers went out onto the fields, they would bring snacks with them to eat and to share with friends, or would swap them with farmers from neighbouring villages. The quality of the snack was important – it would indicate how skilful the wife was in the kitchen and help the family to maintain their %26lsquo;face`. So over the centuries the quality of these snacks became better and better, so that gradually, all over China, one could find snacks that were both delicious and safe.

I think that when people eat snacks, their trust in what they are eating and the need to %26lsquo;keep face` is more important than the actual eating of the snack itself. But now these snacks that have such a long and glorious history strike terror in people`s hearts. Let`s just look at pickled vegetables. Although pickled vegetables were first made in Sichuan, there is hardly anyone in the whole country who hasn`t tasted this delicious snack. But now when you visit Sichuan, your friends will say to you: %26lsquo;Do you like pickled vegetables? There`s a factory in Chengdu that pickles the vegetables in DDVP.` In the past everyone in Sichuan would have pickled vegetables with their meals, but now the managers of some pickled vegetable factories say that, %26lsquo;We don`t eat any of these pickles in Sichuan, we sell them to people from other provinces.`

After some secret interviews, I finally uncovered the truth about this business. The most important part of the pickling process is the soaking. I noticed that the salt used in the pickling was not only whiter than most salt, but the grains were finer. So I asked, %26lsquo;How come it`s so white?` The manager said, %26lsquo;This salt is bought on the black market. It`s cheaper by 50 yuan a jin.` Later in the yard outside, I saw printed on the bags of salt the terrifying words, %26lsquo;Industrial Salt`, and %26lsquo;Not for human consumption.`

The workers of this factory showed me in another yard neatly arranged piles of this industrial salt. I asked, %26lsquo;Have you always used this salt?` They said, %26lsquo;Yes.` I said, %26lsquo;Do the other factories use it?` And the workers all nodded in reply. A few days later I returned to the factory, and noticed lots of little insects crawling around the vats of pickled vegetables, and I asked why there were so many insects. The manager said, %26lsquo;When we soak the vegetables there are always a lot of insects, but when we add the chemicals they all disappear.` A little later, a worker started adding chemicals to the vats. I asked what the chemicals were and the worker replied that they were insect killers. He also said that to ensure that no insects got to them, the pickles would be sprayed with insecticide every two or three days until they left the factory. When I asked exactly what kind of insecticide it was, both the manager and the workers said that they didn`t know. Because there was no label on the bottle of the chemical they used, I took a small sample of the red liquid, put it in a sealed container and sent it off to be checked by the China Food Import Export Investigation Centre, and was told that this chemical was 99% strength DDVP . . .

Only about a third of the pickles produced in Chengdu meet with the regulations imposed by the Chengdu Quality Inspection Department. On 16 June 2004, the Chengdu Quality Inspection Department announced the results of its survey into pickled vegetables. Of 70 batches of products produced by 56 factories, only 16 batches made the grade, which is a pass rate of just 22.86%. 17 batches had levels of additives above the maximum allowed. It was also discovered that 9 batches did not have as much product as labelled and 48 batches had labels that were inaccurate or had insufficient information. The Quality Inspection Department has requested that all those companies that didn`t make the grade rectify their mistakes.

In Guizhou there is a saying that %26lsquo;If you don`t eat something sour for three days, your legs will go soft`. The Guizhou restaurants have become famous for their sour fish soups, but recently 215 of them have developed some serious problems. On 16 June 2004, it was found that in 215 restaurants, there were high levels of opiates in their soup and flavourings, and the authorities have ordered these restaurants to be closed down. Zhang Xin, deputy head of Guizhou`s Anti-drug team, told me that the Anti-drug team joined forces with the disease prevention centre and the food quality inspection department to launch a campaign against the addition of opiates to food products. A combined investigation team carried out research in to 2642 restaurants in Guiyang, Bijie and Liupanshui, and found that in 215 restaurants, the food sold contained traces of opiates in varying quantities. During the campaign, 3,200 grams of opiate seeds and 1,700 grams of opiate shells were confiscated. The relevant authorities have closed these 215 restaurants, and ordered 36 other restaurants whose problems were a less serious to undergo retraining. It is said that many Guizhou restaurants that specialise in beef, lamb, dog, and spicy soups add opiates to their food so as to encourage their customers to return. Wei Tao, the deputy head of the Guizhou Disease Prevention Office, told me that some of the soups served at the restaurants contain traces of morphine, some in rather high quantities. He said that if the customers drink this soup over a long period of time they can become addicted to it, and their dependency might even drive them to take harder drugs.

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Dialogue consumption, Food, Health, Pollution

The protection of wild plants and animals is an important part of humanity`s work to safeguard and improve the environment. Of particular concern is the preservation and reasonable use of these resources in regard to the production of Chinese medicine. We place great importance on the sustainable use of sources of Chinese medicine, on the physical and intellectual-property protection of our national cultural heritage, and on how Chinese medicine can better serve humanity. In switching away from the use of less sustainable wild resources, artificial cultivation is a proven, reliable method.

The protection of wild flora and fauna and the development of Chinese medicine are closely related: the medicine relies heavily on wild sources of pharmaceutical ingredients, substances which come from animals, plants and minerals. The principles of Chinese medicine are applied to make these ingredients into a unique medical system which has made an irreplaceable contribution to population growth and disease control for the Chinese people. With people again coming to respect nature, Chinese medicine as a natural system of health care is attracting more attention. We should ensure that the medicinal culture we pass on is authentic and true to its roots.

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Dialogue Animal_welfare, Health, Natural_Resources

chinadialogue: In China, coal is the dominant energy source and the majority of this coal is used directly for burning. What serious environmental problems are caused by burning coal?

Weidou Ni: The distinguishing characteristics of China`s natural energy resources are abundant coal, scarce oil and a little gas, so in terms of primary energy production and consumption, coal has always held a dominant position. In 2005, China`s standard coal consumption reached 2.22 billion tonnes, standing at almost 70% of total energy consumption. In the use of this coal, 80% is directly for burning. Coal burned by coal-fired power plants accounts for over 50% of this. Over 70% of power plants on China`s electricity grid are coal-fired, while hydro, nuclear and other sources of power for electricity production account for no more than 30% of the total.

When coal burns, apart from producing a large amount of smoke and dust, it can also release the harmful substances carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbon organic matter and so forth. If there are no controls on these pollutants, they will have significant damaging effects on humans` health and environment.

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Dialogue Air, consumption, Energy, Health, Pollution, Transport

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.

Instant preparations

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Dialogue consumption, Health, Natural_Resources

Pollution along the middle and upper reaches of north China`s Yellow River has steadily worsened in recent years. Power-hungry and polluting industrial zones have sprung up along the river; factory chimneys tower over what used to be villages. Thick smoke fills the sky and contaminated water flows into the Yellow River. Industrial sludge is dumped on the grasslands. Many of the locals live in the midst of this, and often suffer disease as a result.

Statistics show that waste discharge into the Yellow River has doubled over the last two decades; more than 10 tributaries have become little more than sewers. Forty percent of the Yellow River itself has lost its capacity for life.

According to targets set in China`s 11th Five Year Plan, emissions of major pollutants in 2010 will be 10% below 2005 levels. This means that from 2006, annual emissions reductions of 2% are necessary.

But can the Yellow River be saved? Or will it go the way of China`s Huai River?

“Living here takes a decade off our lives,” sighs our taxi driver, looking into the black smog ahead. We are in the town of Gongwusu, where Ningxia province meets Inner Mongolia. The driver often takes motorway 108 or 109 to destinations on either side of the border. “Everywhere the sky is full of black fumes, like storm clouds. You can`t see the sun; even in the daytime you need to put your headlights on.”

In recent years, factories producing limestone, coke and taconite have set up shop here. And the resulting waste has changed the locals` lives.

Yuan Guangshen, a local village head, looks over the ruins of his village. Says Yuan: “They built an industrial zone here, and the villagers all left.” The village housed most of the agricultural operations in the area and its grain and vegetables fed surrounding factories and mines. The Ordos grasslands lie not far to the east, and over the Yellow River to the west is the vast Alashan desert.

Since 2001, almost 20,000 mu (around 13 square kilometres) of village land was appropriated for the industrial zone. As it grew, chimneys sprouted, belching black fumes that covered the village. The most obvious effect was on the local produce. Black spots and rot appeared on aubergines and tomatoes. Sales plummeted, but Yuan says: “We didn`t get any compensation at the time. Only recently, when we reached a deal with the local government.” The villagers have since moved away, but without the land they farmed for generations, they have no work.

In the past this village, sandwiched between desert and grassland, had no major health problems. But since 2003, cancer and other diseases have killed many. “It`s not so bad on a windy day,” says Yuan. “Otherwise the stench really irritates your nose.” He shakes his head at the nearby factories. “Now we`ve all got respiratory illnesses.” And this is only one of the many industrial zones crammed into the region. Since 2000, the three local governments in the region have been competing to attract heavy industry.

One of these industrial zones is built on pastureland famous in the past for the quality of its cashmere, made from its native Alpas goats. One of the Mongolian herders tells us: “Since 2004, each household has had a dozen or more goats die every year. Even the cashmere is blackened.” Two hundred sheep graze in the shadow of 20 fuming chimneys. A kilometre-long black line runs towards us beside the motorway. “That used to be a riverbed. Then last year the limestone factory started dumping their waste here,” he says. Only two kilometres to the east is a fenced-off nature reserve. This herder is one of the few to remain here. Most have given up their flocks to try and make a living in the town. “In future, there might not be any of us left,” he sighs.

A small town 10 kilometres southwest of Gongwusu grew up around a chemical factory now sold to a Guangdong businessman, who also installed a power plant. The factory effluent filters out through a series of ponds into a creek which flows into the Yellow River. Solid waste is dumped by truck into a deep hollow not far from the river. The factory has its own rail line; the carriages waiting to be loaded are clearly marked: “Danger! Poison!” Further to the southwest lies another industrial zone, with chimneys spewing black smoke that rolls towards the Yellow River. You do not get many clear days there either. A worker in a local orchard tells me: “Whole batches of trees die off every year.” Sixty of the trees he is responsible for have died in four years. The factory`s steaming, muddy effluent is fed straight into the Yellow River, which the orchard draws on for water to irrigate its trees.

In the second half of 2006, China`s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) responded to petitions from the area and ordered the local authorities to force improvements in a number of factories. They shut a number of small coking and sodium silicate operations. But a local environmental official admits: “A lot of the factories we closed here just opened up somewhere else.” There is little scope for optimism on the Yellow River.

Yu Chen is a reporter for the Guangdong-based daily newspaper, Southern Metropolitan News.

Homepage photo by Hal

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Dialogue development, Health, Pollution, Water

Food safety is a basic need for any population, yet we hear warnings of hidden dangers on the dining-room table – of unsafe rice and poisoned vegetables. With the launch of the China Soil Survey, pollution of our soil is now receiving the kind of attention once accorded to air and water, solid waste and noise.

Soil pollution has been called the “invisible pollution.” While other forms of pollution have obvious warning signs – visible contamination of a river, for example, or an airborne stench – soil pollution is easier to miss. And so this grave threat has been growing unnoticed in our fields.

In some areas of China, soil already suffers from varying degrees of pollution. According to the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the situation is worsening and already represents a threat to the environment, to food safety and to sustainable agriculture. According to a scientific sampling, 150 million mu (100,000 square kilometres) of China`s cultivated land have been polluted, with contaminated water being used to irrigate a further 32.5 million mu (21,670 square kilometres) and another 2 million mu (1,300 square kilometres) covered or destroyed by solid waste. In total, the area accounts for one-tenth of China`s cultivatable land, and is mostly in economically developed areas.

Soil pollution presents a genuine danger. An estimated 12 million tonnes of grain are contaminated by heavy metals every year, causing direct losses of 20 billion yuan (US$2.57 billion). Harmful substances accumulate in crops and, via the food chain, find their way into our bodies, where they can cause a variety of illnesses. Soil pollution also damages ecosystems and ultimately threatens their safety.

Measures to prevent soil pollution are weak in China. Currently, given the amount of land in question, the degree of the pollution in specific locations is unclear, making both prevention and remedy difficult. There are no laws or environmental standards regarding soil. Funding is limited, too, so there is little advanced scientific study of China`s soil taking place. The severity of the pollution is not understood by either the public or business, and the situation is worsening.

More worryingly, treating soil pollution – especially that caused by heavy metals – is costly, and such contamination is difficult to eliminate completely. According to Liu Xiaoduan, a specialist at China`s National Research Centre for Geoanalysis (NRCGA), heavy metals are naturally widespread in the soil and cannot be removed. But they can form organic compounds or build in some organisms, and thus end up in the human body, where they accumulate.

“Some time ago, the focus of our work shifted from prospecting for ore, and we now have a number of different aims,” says an official with the China Geological Survey`s department of geological investigation. The aim of agricultural security grew from ensuring quantity to ensuring safety; soil management has become about quality rather than quantity, and environmental awareness is ever increasing. Geochemistry is playing a greater role in both the economy and society.

The science and technology behind prospecting for ore is now the basis for environmental geochemistry, which includes the earth`s atmosphere and hydrosphere, ecosystems and geology – allowing China to carry out detailed and precise soil surveys. It allows geochemistry to play a role in studies of the environment, agriculture, soil quality, oceans and prospecting, and also helps scientists to develop geochemical theory and new technology.

Lu Anhuai, of Peking University`s school of earth and space sciences, says that surveys have found regional geochemical abnormalities which impact upon the environment of cities and villages, and even upon China as a whole. The survey group proposed a number of economic measures to help protect the environment, which were given serious consideration by the government. Surveys of 21 provinces found localised geochemical issues, such as areas of high disease incidence, and various environmental problems in areas which produce particular crops or which surround mines.

China previously carried out two national soil surveys, in the late 1950s and in the `70s. Both studies focused on soil fertility and agricultural productivity, rather than soil pollution. However, the aim of the latest government-funded appraisal — costing 1 billion yuan (US$128.6 million) — is to study the overall state of China`s soil in a comprehensive, systematic and accurate manner. It is intended to: identify the type, degree and cause of soil-pollution hotspots; evaluate associated risks; set environmental classifications for soil; select and trial soil-recovery technology; put together a system of laws and standards regarding soil pollution; and improve environmental management of soil.

Due to conclude in 2008, the survey will focus on protected farmland and grain production areas. The soil-pollution survey will focus on the Yangtze and Pearl River basins, the area surrounding the Bohai Gulf, the former heavy-industrial areas of the north-east, the plains of Sichuan and Shanxi, and major mining cities. The formation of a system to oversee soil environmental quality will focus on improving testing ability and drafting soil pollution laws.

The Geological Survey bureau says three million square kilometres of soil in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, the plains of the northeast, developed coastal areas and the west of China. One million square kilometres have been surveyed already; and a further one million will be examined in the time of the 11th Five Year Plan, which runs to 2010. Completion is due in the period of the 12th Five Year Plan. Regional situations will be summarised and a “National Geochemical Map” produced, which will finally allow us to fully grasp the truth of soil pollution in China.

This article was adapted from China Environmental Times, December 28, 2006.

Qi Xu is a journalist for China Environmental Times.

Homepage photo by Ari Moore

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Dialogue Editor's_pick, Food, Governance, Health, Pollution, Water