China Kicking America’s Ass in Race to Go Solar

Leave it to China to find a way to produce just about anything on the cheap, and do it really quickly. Despite the Obama administration’s dedication to getting America’s clean energy industry off the ground, China is leaving us in the dust and it’s looking unlikely that we’ll get a good chance to catch up.

In fact, the Chinese are preparing to build plants right here in the United States to assemble their products, to get around protectionist legislation.

From The New York Times:

The Obama administration is determined to help the American industry. The energy and Treasury departments announced this month that they would give $2.3 billion in tax credits to clean energy equipment manufacturers. But even in the solar industry, many worry that Western companies may have fragile prospects when competing with Chinese companies that have cheap loans, electricity and labor, paying recent college graduates in engineering $7,000 a year.

“I don’t see Europe or the United States becoming major producers of solar products — they’ll be consumers,” said Thomas M. Zarrella, the chief executive of GT Solar International, a company in Merrimack, N.H., that sells specialized factory equipment to solar panel makers around the world.

China’s commitment to solar energy isn’t likely to make a big dent in the fight against global warming, especially given the country’s own skyrocketing emissions, much of which are caused by the pollution that goes hand-in-hand with running ultra-low-cost factories.

America still has the world’s largest supplier of photovoltaic cells – First Solar in Tempe, Arizona – but China’s Suntech is not far behind. Suntech plans to build a solar panel assembly plant in the United States “to facilitate sales — ‘buy American’ and things like that”, according to the company’s president for global sales and marketing.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: OregonDOT

China’s Air Pollution Causes Reduction in Rainfall

Bad air quality may be affecting China’s ability to raise crops, in addition to the health and environmental problems it causes. Air pollution in the eastern part of the country has reduced the amount of light rainfall over the past half-century, and has also decreased the number of days of light rain by 23%.

From Science Daily:

The study links for the first time high levels of pollutants in the air with conditions that prevent the light kind of rainfall critical for agriculture. Led by atmospheric scientist Yun Qian at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the study appears August 15 in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

“People have long wondered if there was a connection, but this is the first time we’ve observed it from long-term data,” said Qian. “Besides the health effects, acid rain and other problems that pollution creates, this work suggests that reducing air pollution might help ease the drought in north China.”

Researchers discovered that pollution’s aerosols cause smaller cloud droplets, which then have a harder time forming rain clouds. Water drops in polluted skies are up to 50% smaller than in clean skies.

Meanwhile, in Australia, drought experts have found a definite link between rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a decline in rainfall. A study confirmed that the continent’s drought is not a natural dry stretch, but a shift related to climate change.

Link [Science Daily] + [Sydney Morning Herald]
Photo credit: Flickr user robennals

Onion News: China Celebrates Status as #1 Air Polluter

A new report from the Onion News Network highlights China’s reaction to the fact that it is now the world’s top producer of air pollution, with the Chinese Ambassador to the United States calling the smog levels a “grand symbol of Chinese supremacy”. A celebration currently going on in China includes the 100 Widow Smog Dance and a magnificent Coal Ash Dragon kite.

Watch:

China Celebrates Its Status As World’s Number One Air Polluter

“The labor of the people has made the sky black with progress!”

Link [The Onion]

Taiwan Shuts Down Highway for Butterfly Crossing

Drivers in Taiwan are slowing down – and even stopping – as the annual migration of milkweed butterflies across a highway commences. The Taiwanese government shut down one lane of the highway, lowered the speed limit and even putting up protective nets as the insects cross the road. Trees have been planted along the highway to offer a longer-term, natural net.

The whole process takes about a month, as thousands of butterflies fly over a section of freeway in northern Taiwan on their way home after spending the winter further south.

From MSNBC (Reuters):

Before the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau took protective measures in 2007, many butterflies were hit on the highways or killed by wind from speeding vehicles.

“More than 10,000 butterflies will spread their wings to fly high, bravely crossing the highway, on a different kind of life-or-death journey,” the bureau said in a statement, calling the migration “one of a kind.”

The roadkill rate of butterflies has fallen to 0.3 percent last year from 3 percent before the highway department took action, the bureau said.

First the squirrel walkway across a highway in Scotland, now this. As fast as life is these days, it’s so nice to see people go out of their way to stop a moment and help small creatures like these. It seems that for most people in this world, it’s too easy to forget that we can coexist peacefully with all of the other forms of life on this planet instead of just barrelling through.

Imagine if this happened in America, though – something tells me that Mr. Impatient Ass in a Hummer isn’t going to slow down for butterflies, though he’d have quite a clean-up job ahead of him once he passed through the procession.

Link [MSNBC]

China Uses Birth Control, Abortion Pill to Cut Gerbil Population

The gerbil population is exploding in northwestern China, and authorities felt they had no choice but to put the frisky little buggers on the pill. The ‘plague’ of gerbils is threatening to overrun the local desert ecosystem, so forestry officials in the city of Changji in the Xinjiang region began distributing contraceptive-laced pellets last May.

From Yahoo News:

The gerbils’ large burrow systems in the Gurbantunggut Desert had begun to damage the root systems of the few plants that can survive in the area, while also damaging local agriculture, it said.

The pellets contain a specially developed contraceptive and an abortion drug, the report quoted Du Yuefei, head of the epidemic prevention section of the city’s forestry bureau, as saying.

“Besides pregnancy prevention, the drug can induce abortions and thus largely reduce their breeding rate,” Du said.

“It’s a good way to tackle the desert rodent plague.”

The drug has “little effect” on other animals, the report said.

“Little effect”? Hmm. And, how many conservative Americans’ ears just perked up at the words ‘abortion drug’?  They’re getting their pitchforks out already – didn’t even hear the word ‘gerbil’.

Gerbils aren’t an invasive species – they’re native to this area of China. But, they somehow got out of control, and considering that females can have a new litter every 3 months and China’s ecosystems aren’t exactly the picture of health, that’s not too surprising. Officials had previously tried to battle what they call ‘desert rats’ by releasing eagles and owls nearby, but that didn’t work. So far, there’s only been a slight drop in the gerbil population as a result of the birth control and abortion pellets, but who knows how it’s affecting other species in the area.

Link [Yahoo News]

Demand for Oil So Low, Producers are Running Out of Storage Space

Those poor, poor oil producers. They got really excited last year when oil prices rose to an all-time high of $147 per barrel, and they thought for sure that the prices would just keep on rising as demand continued unabated. But low prices haven’t raised demand, which has dropped dramatically in the past year – and producers are running out of room to store all of the excess.

From Twilight Earth:

Some countries, such as Iran, have filled their tankers with crude, taking it off the market to keep prices from dropping even more. The strategy is to sit on the supply until they can bring it to market for the best price, but oil producers, traders, and processors are unsure where the market is going.

“Nobody expected this. The majority of people out there thought the market would keep rising to $200, even $250, a barrel. They were tripping over each other to pick a higher forecast.” – Antoine Halff, Newedge analyst

The delivery point for oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Cushing, OK, has storage tanks that hold 10% of the US crude oil, and industry analysts are predicting that those tanks are rapidly nearing capacity. It looks like now is the time for any investor with storage options to stockpile it at a low cost and wait for the demand to catch back up and raise prices.

More than 30 tankers, rented by oil companies, with capacities of 2 million barrels of oil each, are now simply floating storage tanks. The crews are idle, and the companies have them moored all over the world, just waiting. It’s good business for the owners of the tankers, with rental charges up at $75,000 per day.

People are trying to save money, so they’re driving less – and last year’s high oil prices schooled many on the importance of switching to green energy. Demand will likely continue to fall as the economic recession circles the globe.

Does that mean the age of fossil fuels is over? Not quite, as much as we’d like it to be. China, for one, is showing signs that it won’t be moving on to cleaner energy any time soon – they’re stockpiling oil in mass quantities while prices are low.  The world’s number one producer of greenhouse gases went on an oil shopping spree that included deals with oil producers in Russia, Venezuela and Brazil.

Link [Twilight Earth] + [Sustainablog]

Photo credit: Delaware Dept. of Natural Resources

The Recession’s Green Lining

It may be difficult to see a bright side to the global economic recession, especially if you’re among the millions who have lost their jobs, their homes or their businesses. But thankfully, as painful as the current situation is for most people, the news isn’t all doom and gloom. Things are looking up for the environment and human health in areas that have been long befouled by pollution as financially strapped factories begin to shut their doors.

From Newsweek:

It is no coincidence that some of the dirtiest industrial operations are falling victim to the global recession. Over the past two decades, much of the world’s manufacturing moved to where pollution standards are little more than mild suggestions. Since small, corner-cutting, inefficient facilities tend to both flout pollution laws and be most vulnerable to a sudden drop in demand, the global recession has hit such operations especially hard.

Thousands of factories in China’s Pearl River Delta have shut their doors since late last year, for instance; output of autos, electronics and other goods from factories in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey and Toluca has fallen so sharply that the amount of cargo trucked across the U.S. border has dropped 40 percent.

In India, enough small steel-rolling mills around Delhi have closed that levels of sulfur dioxide (which forms acid rain) fell 85 percent in October 2008 compared with a year earlier. The recession is bringing a green dividend in the developed world, too. Reduced economic activity is projected to cut Europe’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, by 100 million tons in 2009, and the United States’ by about the same amount.

So, while human progress – in the form of environmentally damaging industry and development – is temporarily hampered, the earth gets to take a breather. The key to making the best of this situation is to use this time to focus on cleaner economic activity so that those polluting factories don’t pop right back up again when the economy recovers.

Link [Newsweek]
Photo credit: Flickr user Taras Kalapun

Are China’s Skyrocketing CO2 Emissions Our Fault?

We Westerners just can’t get enough of cheap Chinese goods.  While we satiate our voracious appetite for cheap gadgets and gizmos, China continues to build factories to meet that demand – factories that are polluting their air and water and emitting vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Last year, China officially earned the title of world’s biggest CO2 emitter – but they’re refusing to accept responsibility for the emissions involved in producing goods for foreign markets. New research shows that about a third of all Chinese carbon emissions are the result of producing goods for export, pointing the finger of blame at the West rather than at China itself.

From The Guardian:

Under Kyoto, emissions are allocated to the country where they are produced. By these rules, the UK can claim to have reduced emissions by about 18% since 1990 – more than sufficient to meet its Kyoto target.

But research published last year by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) suggests that, once imports, exports and international transport are accounted for, the real change for the UK has been a rise in emissions of more than 20%.

China, as the world’s biggest export manufacturer, is key to explaining this kind of discrepancy. According to Glen Peters, one of the authors of the new report at Oslo’s Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, about 9% of total Chinese emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for the US, and 6% are from producing goods for Europe.

Academics and campaigners increasingly say responsibility for these emissions lies with the consumer countries.

Despite this new research, world leaders may not agree to a deal based on consumption rather than production of CO2, and even if they did, it’s unclear how national figures would be calculated. But Dieter Helm, professor of economics at Oxford University, says there are ways to take consumption into account, such as a border tax or carbon transfer.

It makes sense: if those factories were producing goods – and emitting CO2 – in America, the UK and other Western countries, we’d obviously be responsible for those emissions. We don’t just purchase vast amounts of consumer goods from Chinese-owned companies – so many of our own domestic companies outsource their production.

Though China needs to take some responsibility for their own dirty practices, we can’t put the blame solely on them for rapidly rising emissions. We’ve got to get our crazy consumer appetite under control.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

So Much for Less Traffic Pollution in Beijing

Last summer, Beijing surprised us all when the city actually managed to reign in air pollution by removing thousands of cars from the streets (and temporarily shuttering certain nearby factories) during the Olympics. The program was so successful, the Chinese government decided to keep it going, actually paying drivers to give up their cars. Unfortunately, something went wrong somewhere along the way. You see, Beijing is somehow adding 1,466 cars to the roads every single day.

From Reuters:

“The city is facing serious traffic pressure and safety risks due to the growing number of automobiles,” Song Jianguo, head of the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

Beijing registered 65,970 new vehicles in the first 45 days of the year, or a daily increase of 1,466, Xinhua said.

China has introduced incentives to try to boost domestic demand but official data shows car sales in January fell 7.76 percent from a year earlier as traditionally roaring economic growth slowed.

Beijing has also introduced rules aimed at taking a fifth of private cars off the road each day, according to license plate numbers, to ease congestion and pollution.

I wonder if the exodus of Chinese villagers from rural areas affected by drought, desertification, pollution and economic depression has anything to do with this? Likely the growing middle class has a hand in it, at least. It just seems insane to have such a large increase of vehicles on the roads despite efforts to curb traffic within city limits. This definitely won’t help them get their notoriously dirty air under control.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user poeloq

Who’s Who in Green: Wen Bo, Chinese Environmental Activist

Environmentalism hasn’t traditionally been very popular in China. Granted, it’s certainly more widespread than it was just a few years ago – but being an environmental activist in a Communist country that suppresses criticism and sacrifices its environment for industry can be very lonely. Wen Bo, a noted Chinese environmentalist, can attest to that.

Many people in China still don’t see the need to protect the environment, says Wen, adding, “Even when I was a student putting up posters for a campus environmental group, people would look at me strangely. They couldn’t understand the need for a club that wasn’t for Ping-Pong or photography.”

Lack of significant support from classmates didn’t keep Wen from pushing forward, though – he’s the head of China operations for California-based Pacific Environment Group, and is one of the country’s best-known environmental activists. Wen allocates grants to grassroots environmental organizations in China, provided by a charity called Global Greengrants Fund. Wen has also bravely spoken out against China’s plan to build nuclear reactors without local consultation, calling the idea “irrational and undemocratic”.

Inspired to enter the environmental movement as a teenager when he watched the televised tactics of an international pressure group, Wen embarked on an environmental crusade, setting up Greenpeace’s office in Beijing in 2000 and then moving into international work.

What Wen sees today in China is hope, as a new generation of young people graduating from college begins to demand better from their government. He believes that young people in China, armed with information from the web and undaunted by the shadow of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, are opening their eyes to environmentalism and why it’s so important.

Wen spoke to CNN in June of 2008 about his projects in China and elsewhere around the world.

CNN: How would you describe China’s environmental grassroots movement?

Wen: I think … we have come about over 10 years and, you know, during this period of time, there were lots of obstacles, for example, the government has never been, never really been supportive to grass-roots and non-governmental efforts.

But, many organizations are able to win the sympathy and support from many government officials; from the central government, from the local government, as well. The very… existence of these environmental organizations alone proves that they have managed to survive and accumulate the manpower and the resources for them to perform better, and they have also been able to recruit a large number of volunteers.

Many organizations, they are not membership-based but they are able to have a large number of volunteers. So, a lot of people check the Web site; write to these groups and some simply to report to these organizations of a local environment problem.

They no longer blindly just go to the environmental protection agency or go to the government in seek of answers. But, they now turn to the environmental organizations to find solutions, to find the opportunities for them to get involved. And also actively participate in some of the efforts.

It’s a sign of that there is a channel; there is a way for ordinary citizens to participate in the efforts to change the environmental problems in China.

Named an ‘Eco Hero’ by TIME Magazine in 2006, Wen has helped to pave the way for this new generation of Chinese citizens who are beginning to push for better environmental standards. And, while China still has a very long way to go to tackle its many environmental problems – from water pollution to smog to desertification – activists like Wen allow the rest of the world to see a silver lining… better things to come.

Wen Bo’s Green Score: 42,478

To Curb Pollution, China Paying Drivers to Give Up Their Cars

China’s efforts to curb air pollution by restricting driving within Beijing city limits was quite a success, so government officials sought to extend the benefits by continuing the traffic limits. Some citizens aren’t too happy with that idea, however, because of the inconvenience of finding alternative transportation. So the Chinese government has taken to offering up to $3,600 to give up heavily polluting vehicles, and even giving drivers more money to purchase cleaner cars.

From Treehugger:

The scheme by the environmental protection bureau is only one part of a massive plan to get Beijing’s more than 350,000 high-polluting vehicles out of the city during 2009. China’s capital has already banned cars from the roads on one of five weekdays based on their license plate number as part of a six-month trial that follows broader anti-traffic restrictions during the 2008 Olympic Games. The pay-off, say officials, is a 7 percent rise in blue sky days this year (although as we’ve mentioned, that statistic remains suspicious).

The initiative would take about 10 percent of the city’s 3.5-million registered cars off the roads — an amount that is estimated to account for 50 percent of the city’s notorious vehicle pollution.

Under the new rules, anyone caught driving vehicles that don’t meet Beijing’s lowest emissions standard within the city’s Fifth Ring Road or within a radius of 10-15km from the city center will be fined 100 yuan (about $12) after a three-month grace period.

The amount of compensation given to drivers giving up heavily polluted vehicles depends on the size, type and age of the vehicle – and payment will be prorated, so the sooner they give up the offending car, the more money they get.

It’s a commendable plan, especially since it will likely raise demand for cleaner cars, giving China’s auto industry a greater incentive to build them. It’s nice to see that after years of very little action – and ever-higher greenhouse gas emissions – China is doing something real to address the problem of air pollution in Beijing. Of course, there’s a long road ahead and China is still struggling to balance environmental concerns with economic progress. Let’s hope that this represents a big step forward.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user poeloq

Hong Kong Air Pollution Worse than Ever

The air quality in Hong Kong is worse than it has ever been since records began, according to official figures revealed on Friday. Much of the pollution comes from factories just over the border in Southern China, though heavy traffic in the city itself is also to blame. Officials fear that the poor air quality could threaten Hong Kong’s position as an international finance center.

From Yahoo News:

The number of hours for which street-level pollution exceeded the danger level in some of the city’s busiest districts rose by 14 per cent in 2008, according to Environmental Protection Department figures.

The department said air pollution levels in the three main shopping and business districts were dangerous for more than 2,000 hours last year — the highest figure since it began taking roadside recordings in 2000.

An Air Pollution Index (API) of more than 100 is considered dangerous, indicating immediate health risks, especially to people with respiratory or heart problems.

Hong Kong’s acting environment secretary has proposed a ban on running engines of parked vehicles, and environmental groups are calling on the government to ban heavy diesel vehicles from driving in busy districts during peak traffic hours.

Something certainly needs to be done quickly, especially as an estimated 10,000 deaths per year in Hong Kong, Macau and Southern China can be attributed to air pollution. And the Hong Kong Environment Protection Department says the pollution may be even worse than these new figures reveal, because they only reflect the level of pollutant that posed the greatest health risk.

This isn’t just a problem for the health of the people living in the area – it’s a problem for the world. Hopefully the government will act quickly with measures that actually have a real impact on the problem.

Link [Yahoo News]

Christmas: Made in China

Christmas is a consumer bonanza, but where do all these products that flood December come from? The answer is China. From fake Christmas trees and ornaments to iPhones and XBoxes, China has become, for all intents and purposes, our North Pole.

This video from GOOD helps put the statistics in perspective and might inspire you to purchase your gifts locally – at least for next year!

One in Three Toys on Store Shelves is Toxic

This Christmas, when you’re shopping for the little ones in your life, don’t just thoughtlessly grab toys off the store shelves. An environmental group found that a mind-boggling 1 in 3 toys tested was found to contain toxic chemicals like lead, flame retardants and arsenic.  The Ecology Center tested more than 1,500 popular toys for contaminants and found that one-third of them contain “medium” or “high” levels of chemicals of concern.

From CNN:

Researchers bought the toys at chain stores including Target, Kmart, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, TJ Maxx, and Wal-Mart, as well as drug stores, dollar stores, on-line retailers and independent toy stores, according to the HealthyToys.org Web site, where the report was posted.

The toys were purchased at stores in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Mich.; Oakland, Calif.; and Albany, N.Y.

The group’s Web site said that the sampling was not random or intended to be representative of all toys on the market. The toys were tested using a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) device that uses x-ray fluorescence spectrometry to detect chemicals like lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, mercury, tin, and antimony.

The study found lead in 20% of the toys tested. In 3.5% of the toys, or 54 items, levels of lead exceeded the federal recall level for paint, 600 parts-per-million.

Also according to the study, children’s jewelry is 5 times more likely to contain lead above the toxic 600 ppm-level than other toys. In particular, the report mentioned that several Hannah Montana brand jewelry items tested high for lead.

Naturally, the toy industry is refuting the report, calling it ‘misleading’ and saying that toys are a “highly regulated industry that has been subject to intense scrutiny”. But, the thing is, toy manufacturers only meet very low minimum standards set by the government.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is putting new regulations in place for toy safety – but not in time for the Christmas buying season. That means that although, come February, many of the toys currently on the shelves will become illegal due to high levels of dangerous contaminants, thousands of those toys will already be in homes across the country.

Shop safe for your kids this holiday season – check out HealthyToys.org, the consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys.  It has toy rankings including best toys and worst toys – and you can search by brand.

And, The Daily Green has a list of toys that have recently been recalled due to lead.

Link [CNN Money] + [Healthy Toys]

Chinese Villagers in Mining Region Stand up to Pollution

For far too long, the people who have suffered most from the side effects of China’s rapid economic rise have done so in silence. They breathe filthy, contaminant-filled air and drink water full of toxins. Birth defects, fertility problems and early death are just a few of the frightening consequences the poor Chinese citizens of mining areas have had to put up with. But now, residents of the tiny hamlet of Gaodong are standing up and demanding to be heard.

From Yale’s Environment 360:

Living in a county that produces one-fifth of all the manganese excavated on earth, the villagers had — like many ordinary Chinese — paid a high environmental price for fueling China’s economic boom. In this instance, however, the people of Gaodong had decided they would take it no more.

Gaodong is located in Xiushan, a county that is home to 41 licensed and more than 200 unlicensed manganese mines, which excavate the valuable metal — used in steel, aluminum, and copper production — by blasting the earth with dynamite. The residents of Gaodong and neighboring villages have been subjected to frequent explosions that crack the foundations of their homes and force their children to stuff cotton in their ears to do their homework. They have seen their underground aquifers drained by the mining activity, which empties all six of the village’s wells in the dry season.

Their rivers sometimes run black as the mining companies and manganese refineries dump tons of toxic mine waste directly into surrounding waterways. They have watched as badly polluted irrigation water destroys rice crops, kills fruit trees, and cuts harvests by more than half. In addition, the village air has been fouled with mining dust, and local health officials have diagnosed some local mine workers with neurological diseases caused by heavy metal pollution.

The people of Gaodong have been seeking compensation from the Chinese government for years, finally drawing township head Zhou Hui to their village – but when a meeting didn’t lead to a resolution, they rioted. Four women – including a 75-year-old and a 67-year-old – prevented his car from leaving, and latched onto Zhou’s legs when police tried to remove them. When the police became violent toward the women, the village men stepped in and fights ensued. One woman ended up in the hospital for 9 days, and the police later came back to interrogate every male villager over the age of 16.

Afterwards dozens of men left their jobs behind and lived in makeshift huts in the hills for months, fearful of arrest or retribution. No charges have been filed, but relations are still uneasy between the people, the mines and local officials. The clash is a dramatic example of Chinese people getting fed up with sacrificing their families’ health for their country’s economy.

It’s so good to hear that Chinese villagers are standing up for themselves, but the Chinese government is hardly known for being sympathetic to things like this. Corruption runs rampant as officials turn a blind eye to illegal mining operations so the country can continue building its economy. And, we’ve all heard stories about the Chinese government shutting people up when they speak out against government practices.

Read more about the effects of mining on China’s environment and people at Environment 360.

Link [Environment 360]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

China’s Dirty Secret: 60 Minutes Follows America’s Electronic Waste

The gangs who run the electronic wasteland in China don’t want you to see it. In fact, they’re so keen on keeping it out of the media that they attacked a 60 Minutes crew that was attempting to document the frightening, toxic mess full of lead, cadmium, chromium, polyvinyl chloride and other dangerous substances. But, 60 Minutes and correspondent Scott Pelley got the scoop anyway, exposing what happens when our electronics are illegally shipped overseas for dumping.

From CBS News:

It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling – about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.

At a recycling event in Denver, 60 Minutes found cars bumper-to-bumper for blocks, in a line that lasted for hours. They were there to drop off their computers, PDAs, TVs and other electronic waste.

Asked what he thought happens once his e-waste goes into recycling, one man told Pelley, “Well my assumption is they break it apart and take all the heavy metals and out and then try to recycle some of the stuff that’s bad.”

Most folks in line were hoping to do the right thing, expecting that their waste would be recycled in state-of-the-art facilities that exist here in America. But really, there’s no way for them to know where all of this is going. The recycling industry is exploding and, as it turns out, some so-called recyclers are shipping the waste overseas, where it’s broken down for the precious metals inside.

60 Minutes followed the container of e-waste that was collected in Denver for 7,459 miles to Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong. It turned out that the carton of e-waste that would supposedly be ‘recycled’ was just one of thousands on an illegal smuggling route, to be dumped in poor communities. The town of Guiyu was described by 60 Minutes as ‘a sort of Chernobyl of electronic waste’.

Greenpeace has been filming around Guiyu and caught the recycling work. Women were heating circuit boards over a coal fire, pulling out chips and pouring off the lead solder. Men were using what is literally a medieval acid recipe to extract gold. Pollution has ruined the town. Drinking water is trucked in. Scientists have studied the area and discovered that Guiyu has the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. They found pregnancies are six times more likely to end in miscarriage, and that seven out of ten kids have too much lead in their blood.

The whole article over at the 60 Minutes website is definitely worth a read. It’s a sobering reality check for anyone who thought that recycling drives are the answer to our massive electronic waste problem. Both consumers and manufacturers have got to take responsibility for where these products end up when they’ve outlived their usefulness to us.

Watch a video of the attack on the 60 Minutes crew at The Huffington Post.

Link [60 Minutes]

China: Economic Miracle, Environmental Disaster

China’s economy has been on the upswing for decades now, and it’s expected to continue growing at an extremely rapid pace for many more decades into the future. As more of the country’s population has begun to enjoy better standards of living and China’s esteem has raised in the eyes of the world, however, there was a price to pay. China’s economic miracle has come at the expense of the environment, and it’s only going to get worse going forward.

From CNN:

At home, the Chinese people watch as environmental degradation and pollution transform their landscape, and in the process endanger their health and future livelihoods.

No one is exempt from the environmental consequences of China’s brand of unfettered economic development, but as Stephen Voss’ pictures so heartbreakingly illuminate, China’s poorest are particularly vulnerable.

In China’s cities, merely walking out the front door results in an immediate assault on the senses. The Chinese people complain most often about noise pollution. A cacophony of construction booms and car horns is a permanent fixture of life. The sky is often blanketed in a thick gray haze of pollutants.

The culprits are the ever-present coal-fired power plants and giant heavy-industry complexes that fuel the country’s growth, and more and more the noxious emissions of automobiles.

The environmental toll is enormous. China has five of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, and on an average day in China’s major cities, 75 percent of the residents are breathing unclean air. The end result: 750,000 Chinese die prematurely every year from air pollution-related respiratory diseases.

China is following the example of the West, where we have enjoyed such luxuries as private cars, air conditioning and carbon-intensive leisure activities.  China’s people certainly deserve a better way of life than what they’ve been given, but all of these advances are putting a huge strain not only on the earth, but on their own health as well.

Chinese officials have yet to tackle even the most basic of needs, like clean water. Among over 660 cities in China, only one small city – Lianyuan – can claim to provide clean drinking water straight from the tap.

Although the middle class in China is growing, the poor people have it worse than ever, dealing with poisoned water and air, sick children and ruined crops. A slideshow of photos by photographer Stephen Voss gives a heartbreaking look into what these people really have to deal with.

As China’s economy continues to improve, it’s doubtful that there will be any real incentive to protect the environment. We can only hope that clean, renewable energy gets implemented as quickly as possible so we don’t see the rest of the world’s efforts erased by the dirty deeds of the Chinese government.

Link [CNN]
Photo credit: Stephen Voss/CNN

Making Cotton Candy with Pedal Power

No need for a fancy set-up when making cotton candy – street vendors in China have shown that it’s easy to do on a bike with a can of propane. The propane heats the sugar, and it’s spun using the pedals on the bike.  Smart, low-tech, pragmatic green design – we love it!

Link [Gizmodo]

Beijing: ‘Sorry the Garbage Plant Stinks’

It’s rare that Chinese officials actually apologize for anything.  Somehow, one way or another, it’s either someone else’s fault or it didn’t happen at all. But apparently, Beijing citizens were so riled up about the stench coming from a garbage plant in the city, officials decided to do something about it.  No, they didn’t put all of the protestors in jail, surprisingly.

From Reuters:

Several hundred people clashed with security forces in Beijing’s eastern Chaoyang district last week, complaining that noxious fumes from Gao’antun Garbage Landfill Plant were affecting their health, a Hong Kong-based rights group reported.

The local government promised residents the smell would disappear within 20 days, and that 91 million yuan ($13 million) would be spent to clean up the plant, whose fumes had kept nearby residents awake at night, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

“The smell from the Gao’antun Garbage Landfill Plant has affected the normal lives of surrounding residents. I apologize on behalf of the Chaoyang District government,” the paper quoted spokesman Yin Xiufeng as saying.

It seems that China has been growing so fast, new communities are popping up at never-before-seen rates – and the local governments aren’t communicating very well with each other.  That has spurred so many clashes between government and private citizens, who feel as if they’re being stepped on, that officials in some cases have no choice but to actually… address the problem.  Shocking.

So, they’re willing to apologize for a smelly garbage plant, but not for the insane pollution that’s killing their citizens at this very moment?

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user Boris van Hoytema

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