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Changing Habits One Village at a Time to Limit China's Waste

Lin Yang

   WASHINGTON - When Chen Liwen returned to her parents' village in Hebei
   province after earning her master's degree'¯in California, she was
   shocked by what she saw.

   Garbage despoiled the landscape where she had played as a child.'¯Then
   36 years old, she knew China had changed, but the amount of garbage in
   Xicai revealed just how much prosperity had altered frugal habits. The
   villagers had shifted from only shopping locally to buying online.

   The demise of household farming meant the food waste once fed to pigs,
   ducks and chickens wasn't recycled, it rotted. They threw away clothes,
   which would have been handed down, then turned into useful scraps and
   reused until colorless.

   Chen's village reflected the nation. In the 1980s, still-poor China
   generated on average 30 million tons of garbage annually. By 2017,
   China [1]generated 215 million tons, compared to 268 million tons
   generated by the U.S. that year. The World Bank [2]estimates that by
   2025, China will generate 500 million tons of solid waste annually.

References

   1. https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2020/02/no-time-to-waste/
   2. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANDEVELOPMENT/Resources/336387-1334852610766/AnnexJ.pdf

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