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Down with smoke stacks and rotten egg smells
By Yuan Ye and Cheng Zhuo |
September 29, 2009, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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AN environmental chief in the industrial city of Zhuzhou in central China's Hunan Province, Wen Tiejun jokingly describes himself as a "chimney demolisher."
As a result of tight environment rules enacted by Wen's department, a textile mill in the city will soon replace a coal-burning boiler with a cleaner, more efficient gas-driven boiler. An 80-meter-tall chimney for the old boiler will be demolished.
"Since 2006 we have been pushing factories to dismantle more than 100 chimneys that were highly polluting or had been out of use," says Wen, director of Zhuzhou's Environmental Protection Bureau.
A forest of chimneys was once worshiped as a token of modernization of the world's largest developing and most populous country. But nowadays, these towers belching out noxious dust and greenhouse gases are subject to either upgrade treatment or demolishion as China rapidly embraces a new concept of development: low carbon.
"In the 1950s and 60s, we were delighted and proud of the sound of roaring machines and stacks of chimneys giving off thick smoke, because these indicated that our socialist construction was in full swing and our motherland was prospering," recalls 64-year-old Zhuzhou resident Ou Houjin.
After coming to power in October 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led by Chairman Mao Zedong forged a vision of building a rich and powerful socialist country from the "poor and blank" situation. Heavy industry was the backbone.
Only 60 km away from Chairman Mao's birthplace Shaoshan, Zhuzhou was chosen as one of eight industrial bases to be developed since the early 1950s.
"Without chimneys, Zhuzhou might never have become a key industrial base," says Ou, who works as an environmental protection adviser for a chemical plant. "But we've paid a high price for it."
In 2004, Zhuzhou found itself among the 10 worst polluted sites, according to an official evaluation of overall environmental quality of 113 cities in China.
"The sky was no longer clear and fewer fishes were seen in the river. There was always a strange, acrid odor in the air around the industrial area, sometimes like the smell of rotten eggs. It was suffocating," Ou says.
In 2007, Zhuzhou and neighboring Changsha and Xiangtan cities were chosen by the central government as a pilot zone for building a "resource efficient and environment-friendly society."
Zhuzhou epitomizes China's general shift to clean energy. In the vast open land in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, arrays of wind mills are being built to generate electricity.
(The authors are senior writers at Xinhua news agency.)
As a result of tight environment rules enacted by Wen's department, a textile mill in the city will soon replace a coal-burning boiler with a cleaner, more efficient gas-driven boiler. An 80-meter-tall chimney for the old boiler will be demolished.
"Since 2006 we have been pushing factories to dismantle more than 100 chimneys that were highly polluting or had been out of use," says Wen, director of Zhuzhou's Environmental Protection Bureau.
A forest of chimneys was once worshiped as a token of modernization of the world's largest developing and most populous country. But nowadays, these towers belching out noxious dust and greenhouse gases are subject to either upgrade treatment or demolishion as China rapidly embraces a new concept of development: low carbon.
"In the 1950s and 60s, we were delighted and proud of the sound of roaring machines and stacks of chimneys giving off thick smoke, because these indicated that our socialist construction was in full swing and our motherland was prospering," recalls 64-year-old Zhuzhou resident Ou Houjin.
After coming to power in October 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led by Chairman Mao Zedong forged a vision of building a rich and powerful socialist country from the "poor and blank" situation. Heavy industry was the backbone.
Only 60 km away from Chairman Mao's birthplace Shaoshan, Zhuzhou was chosen as one of eight industrial bases to be developed since the early 1950s.
"Without chimneys, Zhuzhou might never have become a key industrial base," says Ou, who works as an environmental protection adviser for a chemical plant. "But we've paid a high price for it."
In 2004, Zhuzhou found itself among the 10 worst polluted sites, according to an official evaluation of overall environmental quality of 113 cities in China.
"The sky was no longer clear and fewer fishes were seen in the river. There was always a strange, acrid odor in the air around the industrial area, sometimes like the smell of rotten eggs. It was suffocating," Ou says.
In 2007, Zhuzhou and neighboring Changsha and Xiangtan cities were chosen by the central government as a pilot zone for building a "resource efficient and environment-friendly society."
Zhuzhou epitomizes China's general shift to clean energy. In the vast open land in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, arrays of wind mills are being built to generate electricity.
(The authors are senior writers at Xinhua news agency.)
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