1 Waste in China

From their changing diet to owning more household objects, the Chinese are becoming great consumers. Production of consumer goods needs resources such as raw materials, energy, water, land and labour as inputs, to maintain production and sustain output. Manufacturing also produces many waste products, a large number of which, if not treated carefully, and emitted to the environment, are pollutants and may be hazardous to the local population.

An extreme example of the harm that can be done by the lax control of wastes is shown through China’s environment ministry’s acknowledgement of the existence of ‘cancer villages’, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Industrial pollution in China

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Figure 1 shows a photograph of a range of old industrial buildings with many chimneys emitting plumes of water vapour and smoke. The picture is shown to illustrate newspaper article about Cancer villages. The article reads: ‘Chinese “cancer village” scores rare victory over polluters. A waste disposal firm that spewed toxi pollution into a rural Chinese village will have to pay compensation to nearly 400 villagers after losing a long-running legal battle.’

Figure 1 Industrial pollution in China

A cancer village is one where the incidence of cases of cancer is higher than would be expected from the incidence in the general population. This may indicate that there is a hazard that villagers are exposed to. In the village of Liuchong in central China’s Hubei province, villagers have reported deaths from cancer and are concerned about phosphogypsum dumped in the area by a local company, shown in Figure 2. Phosphogypsum is a by-product of making fertiliser and it contains cancer-causing chemicals such as arsenic, uranium and radium.

Figure 2 Phosphogypsum slag heap in Sichuan

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Figure 2 shows a photograph of a phosphogypsum dump. It is a bare grey, cliff faced mound of material with some derelict walls at the base and a wide, stony river bed in the foreground with only a small water filled channel within it

Figure 2 Phosphogypsum slag heap in Sichuan

Despite much publicity for their plight, the residents of Liuchong don’t seem to have had much official response from the provincial government and the environmental protection bureau or the factory concerned. Data collection on cancer rates in China have improved over recent years (Chen et al., 2016) and show that lung cancer is the most common cancer causing death. However, a considerable amount of evidence needs to be gathered before some hazardous chemical in the environment can be shown unequivocally to be the cause of increased cancers.