Rubbish Removal from Homes in Rural China

[liuzhou]

I think you have summed up the problem.

i wish i could argue like this with my in-laws

That won't work in China. I think you need to take a huge step back, observe and learn. This is not Ireland, and if you can't accept that, you are in the wrong place.

Try imagining if your Chinese family came to Dublin and started telling your family they were wrong about pretty much everything. That would go down well, wouldn't it?

[johnk]

Hi,

I made a post earlier in this thread, but I think I did not express myself very well. I was trying to say that China today in many ways remind me of Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s.

To give an example, in my last post I said

The thread about taxi drivers brought to mind a furious row I had with my cousin.

About 1975 I was driving my cousin to the town to do the weekly shop. She was in the front passenger seat of the car and she was holding her 3 year old son on her knee. I asked her would she not put the child in the back where he would be safer. She told me I was being ridiculous, nothing could happen to the child because she was holding him. We had a big row but in the end I gave in and drove her to town.

If you said to the same woman today that she carry a child in a car while he was not strapped in, she would accuse you of child neglect. Her attitude has changed completely. No amount of agrumenting I could do in 1975 could make her put the child in the back (I don't think the seat belt law was in effect then either) and now she wouldn't dream of not strapping her grandkids in properly.

People's attitudes and viewpoints change with time and circumstance - whether it is seat belts in cars, dumping rubbish outside the front door, having exposed electic wires in the house or giving up smoking after a stroke. China is at a different place on the curve. It will improve in time and as people gain experience.

As others have said, trying to impose your views and attitudes on others is not going to work.

Well, it might work if you are a master of propaganda and psychology :-) - but that is another topic.

By all means give people a nudge in the 'right' direction but you are not doing yourself any favours by trying to impose 2012 Irish standards on rural Chinese folk.

Enjoy your trip.

One last thought.

How do you think your Chinese in-laws will remember your visit and how would you like them to remember your visit?

The difference between being remembered as the foreign guy who was always complaining and being remembered as the foreign guy who did something positive may not take very much. Personally, I think it would be better to be considered in a positive light - even if you in-laws are usually 5000 miles away.

[hackinger]

Hi,

I reckon that, say, 50 or even 40 years ago there were rural areas in Ireland and in many parts of Europe without organized rubbish removal. This is true also for Scandinavia and the Germanic lands. People would either walk to to a community owned landfill or just dispose the rubbish somewhere.

It is only in the last 30 years or so that developed countries implemented its current relatively sophisticated system with separate wheelie bins for different recyclable items (glass, cans, organic waste, metals) and waste. Toxic waste, electronic equipment is collected separately. Still, here in supposedly "orderly" Germany in an apartment complex you will notice, that the majority of people carefully separate their rubbish but there are also some who simply will not cooperate.

Burning waste is safe only when done properly by modern incinerators. Again, during the last few decades much progress has been made to reduce toxic emissions. For instance as late as 1990, the about 50 large waste incinerators in Germany produced 30% of the domestic Dioxin emissions. In 2000, they claimed, it was down to 1%, although the number of incinerators had increased to about 60. Similar improvements have been reported by other countries. (Btw, not all environmental groups buy these happy figures and Dioxin emissions by incinerators continues to be a concern and an active field of research. )

When I first visited the US in the eighties of the last century, I was also - well - surprised that in suburbs they simply put garbage bags on the street in the evening before garbage collection, not wheelies. Rats and other rodents had a feast every time.

I believe if you revisit the village in 20 years they will have proper rubbish management too. Nothing particularly Chinese about it.

Cheers

hackinger

[li3wei1]

But Singapore has a significant Chinese minority? Hong Kong, similarly, is spotless?

I've been away for a while, but Hong Kong was definitely not spotless before 2003, and I have no reason to believe it's changed much. Comparing it to Singapore is laughable. I believe the Hong Kong system is to have an army of publicly funded people walking around cleaning everything up, which makes it difficult to get people to care about the litter problem, because they know that 'someone' will take care of it. As a result, out in the countryside you routinely find piles of batteries where someone's ghettoblaster ran out of juice, or packets of tissues with one removed.

One anecdote that's sort of tangentially related. I once found, washed up on the north coast of Lantau, a bale of compacted plastic rubbish, over a cubic meter. Every piece had the grune punkt logo on it, i.e. it had been separated for recycling in Germany's world-class waste management regime.

[Scandinavian]

One anecdote that's sort of tangentially related. I once found, washed up on the north coast of Lantau, a bale of compacted plastic rubbish, over a cubic meter. Every piece had the grune punkt logo on it, i.e. it had been separated for recycling in Germany's world-class waste management regime.

At least the Germans have managed to spread knowledge of "Grüne Punkt", its actually used across Europe now. But very ironic to have that logo on a pile of crap washing up on the other side of the planet.

[pprendeville]

your recent threads have caused me to do a lot of reminiscing.

Hi johnk,

My parents both grew up in rural Ireland also, both in West Limerick, I gather a similar situation to you, both on farms in the 50s. No garbage collection in those days as they didn’t live in a throw away society. Everything was reused or at least some use made of it.

Plastic seems to be the main problem in China. Everything seems to packaged in fancy plastic packaging in supermarkets with very little in degradeable packaging materials. I don’t see anything being composted here or segregated. I have made a compost heap here but it’s not being used. I’m the only one using it despite suggesting it be used. Still I’ll keep up the habit and see if it catches on. I’m not going to force anything on them.

I agree with the pay-per-lift system. It’s gone private in Dublin as of this year. It was with Dublin City Council but I think Greyhound have the contract now. Black bins are collected every second week and alternate with green (recyclable) and brown (compostable) bins on the other week. Green bins are free and I use them almost every 2^nd week and I don’t use the compost bin at €2 a lift as I mentioned already I have my own compost heap out the back which I throw on the raised beds. Have a few vegetables growing out the back which is handy to have.

I see your point but I think that back then it was managed responsibly by responsible people, i.e. people didn’t just dump things at the front of the house and risk the place being infested with rats, granted the rubbish didn’t amount to what it does today.

[pprendeville]

There is plenty of police on the streets, if they would write a fine once in a while when they saw people littering, then that would be a good start. At least it would make people more aware of where they are littering.

+1.

[pprendeville]

But people aren't laboratory rats, even though economists probably wish they were. Reasons for behaviour in one society will often be different than reasons for the same behaviour in another society. Your ideas might work in some kind of 'Brave New World' police-state European future.

realmayo - i think it is a good suggestion to introduce fines but perhaps it may not work. has this type of idea been introduced before. i don't see anything brave about it, just common sense to make people more aware of the littering problem which sooner or later will need to be addressed. why let it go on any longer. if you think this idea wouldn't work can you suggest any other solutions?

[pprendeville]

Both the UK's and Ireland's waste and rubbish is largely exported to China.

Quote

they'd just go ahead and do it anyway for the benefit of the majority

Doesn't sound like anything in China I've ever experienced. They only do things for the benefit of the party - a minority.

shame on both of us for exporting and for China for accepting.

i was talking with a chinese friend recently and we were debating Taiwan and China and reunification etc. i am under the impression that it won't happen in the immediate future (this is probably for a completely different thread) according tyo what I've read on the subject and from my lecturer who is fairly knowledgeable on Taiwan and goes there once or twice a year and is linked in with the Taiwanese embassy back home. anyway, the part of my argument why Taiwanese might resent unification is that they might be subjected to the same conditions as mainland China which includes the great firewall. friend knew of this and agreed with it as it "benefited the majority" and I also mentioned Tiananmen which he also said benefited the majority, the alternative could have been a civil war which woulkd have brought the country to it's kness for God knows how long. so that's why i brought up the point concerning "benefit of the majority".

[Scandinavian]

Well, if we really want Europe to look bad, then I think this article would be better, and more recent.

[pprendeville]

That won't work in China. I think you need to take a huge step back, observe and learn. This is not Ireland, and if you can't accept that, you are in the wrong place.

Try imagining if your Chinese family came to Dublin and started telling your family they were wrong about pretty much everything. That would go down well, wouldn't it?

I've observed and learned for a year back in 2003/2004. Yes this is not Ireland but it if Ireland were like this and china was pretty good in terms of environmental conditions I'd like to be getting analysed critically as to how to improve the conditions. similarly, our economy isn't the dogs bollocks at the moment and hence it is good to hear suggestions about this although this thread isn't really the place.

Again, if Chinese family come to Ireland and see anything they disagree with I'm all ears. I am not implying they are wrong about everything. I just thing some of the following issues need to be dealt with:

Littering, smoking around children, use of seatbelts, offering energy drinks similar to red bull to children, eletrical conditions.

I deem all of these reasonablepoints of debate. do you not?

[abcdefg]

In Kunming (not necessarily the outlying suburbs) I often see a parent and a child walking ahead of me and the child wants to toss some trash on the street, maybe a candy wrapper or a tissue he has used. The mother or father tells the child "no" and points him to a nearby trash bin. Always find that small act reassuring and it makes me think there may be hope.

[Scandinavian]

In Kunming (not necessarily the outlying suburbs) I often see a parent and a child walking ahead of me and the child wants to toss some trash on the street, maybe a candy wrapper or a tissue he has used. The mother or father tells the child "no" and points him to a nearby trash bin. Always find that small act reassuring and it makes me think there may be hope.

Glad to hear it happens, I have yet to see this, but often see the opposite. Or see grown ups finishing a pack of cigarettes and throw the pack on the street even though they are steps away from a garbage-can, or all the crap flying out of car windows when driving on the streets. (the latter is actually an offense that could result in a traffic fine I believe)

[frankwall]

Yes, I think it might be primarily an issue of education coupled with bad management. People throw rubbish on the street everywhere, just some people do it more than others. I think there were good points raised above concerning the comparison with 1970s Ireland. Back then, most of the waste was bio degradable, today in China, there is so much plastic. Certainly, the authorities have to put money into waste management, developing an infrastructure and educating the people.

[abcdefg]

#73 -- @Scandanavian -- I also see them throw trash on the street and toss plastic bottles out of moving cars. Didn't mean to imply that Kunming was way ahead of other Chinese cities in that regard.

[Scandinavian]

China has been trying to stop people spitting for near on 70 years. Total fail. Even Mao couldn't deal with that one!

some news on this http://beijingcream.com/2013/01/shenzhen-rolls-out-legislation-to-enforce-civilized-behavior/