China’s Black Stinky Rivers

 “Pollution is present all around us. For example, in my hometown we have a few polluted rivers where the colour of the water has changed. Fish and everything else in the rivers has died.”

                            Student from Liaoning province in north China

Photo: This algae-filled river is located in the residential area in which I lived in Hangzhou. (Author’s photo) 

Having lived in China for close to two years and studied it for five, it has become clear to me that the Chinese environment is presently in a bad shape. Of course there are differences across the country, but the Chinese society is facing huge difficulties when it comes to environmental degradation and its implications in the years to come. The stories of university students I interviewed in Hangzhou can help shed some light on the environmental consciousness of young educated people in China, and what they see as important steps in improving the country’s environment.

 

Polluted hometowns

I just returned from a trip to China where I conducted fieldwork for my Master thesis. The topic of my thesis is Chinese environmentalism, and during my fieldwork I interviewed almost 20 students in a student organization working for environmental protection at a university in Hangzhou, called Green Origin Association (GOA). Most of the students told me about the situation in their hometowns.  In addition to air pollution, a recurring theme of these stories was polluted water. Most of the students told me stories similar to the one cited above; about how the rivers and lakes in their hometowns were heavily polluted, often not drinkable or even useable at all. The student from Liaoning told me that the water had changed colour on different occasions; first to yellow and then green. He then explained that the issue was caused by a paper factory upstream unloading its waste water directly into the river. The problem of the polluted river later had even larger implications as it also led to pollution of a nearby water reservoir.

Many of my informants told me about problems with rivers or lakes when I asked them about specific environmental problems they were aware of in their hometown. However the reasons for it were not always the same. One student originally from Guizhou Province told me about how the construction of massive water driven power stations near her village had made the old water reservoir dry up, making it impossible to go swimming and fishing in the area.

Another student told me about how a big landfill was built outside of her home town, and that it was apparently not handled very well. At first the only problem was a very heavy smell, especially in summer, but after a while it became clear that the landfill had poisoned the areas’ ground water and river, making the water unusable and eventually forcing local villagers to relocate. She further explained how she had gone to see the landfill, and been unable to determine whether there were workers attending to the place at all.

 

Photo: In addition to water pollution, air pollution is also among the biggest environmental issues in China today. This photo shows a university student riding his bike through campus at Zhejiang University wearing a face mask for protection against the smog. (Author’s photo)Photo: In addition to water pollution, air pollution is also among the biggest environmental issues in China today. This photo shows a university student riding his bike through campus at Zhejiang University wearing a face mask for protection against the smog. (Author’s photo)

 

China’s government policy

The Chinese government divides the country’s different water bodies into five different categories based on water quality. Water of quality one, two and three is all safe for drinking, while water of quality four and five is only used for industry and agriculture respectively. Water of quality worse than grade five is not used at all. A Xinhua news report states that 60% of the monitored underground water sources in China are undrinkable directly from the tap. Hundreds of millions of people actually drink contaminated water on a daily basis, potentially leading to increased rates of cancer, other ills, and premature death.

 

The impact Chinese industry and lack of pollution control have had on rivers and lakes in the country’s modern history are certainly enormous. On the bright side, the government is starting to acknowledge the problems both with water pollution and water shortages, and various types of other environmental issues.

My interviewee from Liaoning province also believes that the circumstances are getting better due to the government’s actions. He explained to me that a few years back, the heavily polluting paper factory was closed down and a process was started to improve the quality of the river and the water reservoirs. He believes that “a lack of environmental awareness”, as he called it, among ordinary people is a big problem because even though the polluting factory has been closed down, many people still continue throwing garbage into the river.

Another student that I interviewed, who is from a smaller town in Zhejiang province, told me about how she was able to go swimming in the river in her hometown when she was little, but that because of heavy pollution this was no longer possible. She went on to tell about how the government has started tackling pollution of the river, and that last year she had witnessed one of the first steps in a river recovery program, where the dirty mud from the riverbed was dug out by the government of Zhejiang province.

Text Box: The Hangzhou rivers in the restoration program are called Black Stinky Rivers (黑臭河). A figurative way of saying rehabilitation is to say taking off the hat (摘帽), thus making the process of restoring the water quality of the rivers a process of taking the black smelly hats off the rivers (摘黑臭的帽).In Hangzhou the government has started a project to clean up the city’s black stinky rivers, and during 2013 30 rivers were restored. The plan for 2014 was to clean another 47 rivers throughout the city. The student organization Green Origin Association also plays a minor part in this project, having been assigned the role of overlooking the restoration of a river running through the university campus. The student organization is not actually cleaning the river, but they are provided the task of overlooking that the people responsible for the restoration are doing their job properly. The program of rehabilitating these polluted rivers is a government organized project and it raises hope for the future when it comes to pollution control in China.

“Clean” is however a relative term, as some of the rivers that were claimed successful in the 2013 clean up, still only reach the lowest level of the Chinese water quality scale. However, it is still an improvement, and it makes the water usable. Improving water quality is no easy task, but according to the students the government is certainly taking an important early step in the right direction, raising awareness about the matter and proving that it is taking environmental problem seriously. There is, however, as one of my interviewees said, still a long way to go.

 

Knowledge and environmental education

One student told me how she found that knowledge about protecting environment is lacking, even among members of the student association. She said that although her friends did care about the environment they were unsure what they could do to improve it. According to her, the most important thing that can be done to improve the environment is to spread awareness among the Chinese people. She was referring to her small hometown where environmental awareness was completely lacking.

These personal experiences by the students I have interviewed, and many others like them, all tell a story about a country with huge environmental problems, and they are obviously not constrained to water pollution. Air pollution, desertification, water shortages, decreasing bio-diversity and so on are all huge challenges the Chinese people will be facing for years to come. The students I interviewed believe it is crucial to increase environmental education and awareness among the Chinese people, which is one of the main focuses in their work, but they also believe the Chinese government need to put more effort into cleaning up the pollution of yesterday as well as limiting the pollution of tomorrow.

For a series of photos of water pollution in China, please have a look here.

 

Marius Ledum, Master Student at the University of Oslo.

By Marius Ledum, Master Student at the University of Oslo
Published Apr. 16, 2015 11:37 AM - Last modified Feb. 5, 2020 3:04 PM