Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
Even in pastoral pockets of bliss, there's ugly garbage
By Wang Yong |
March 14, 2013, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
LAST week I saw two heavy hens pecking at a piece of plastic foam until the foam was covered with holes, like a honeycomb. I had never seen this before.
I know chicken eat sand and small stones, but it was the first time in my life to see them eating plastics as if devouring delicious food.
The two hens were raised in a dilapidated makeshift tent sheltering plastic garbage in the countryside near my suburban home.
Seeing this, I was dumbfounded. The old garbage collector smiled from ear to ear: "They do eat plastics."
Roaming in the countryside has become my weekend pastime lately and the bucolic views are generally a feast for the eyes - you walk around ponds of lotus, fish and ducks, you walk on raised earth beds covered in grass and flanked by flowers, you see reeds bending in the wind, you see birds fly.
But here and there, you see plastic garbage lining the road or filling the ponds.
As I walked away from the two hens last week and walked further into a 500-mu (33.3-hectare) ecological garden featuring vast stretches of water and plants, I could see piles after piles of plastic garbage bags containing solid, organic kitchen waste and other household leftovers.
They were apparently thrown away by farmers living nearby.
Late Chairmao Mao Zedong once wrote in the 1950s that there was human waste everywhere in the countryside, but today we have plastic waste instead. When hens begin to eat plastic foam, do we dare eat their eggs?
I know chicken eat sand and small stones, but it was the first time in my life to see them eating plastics as if devouring delicious food.
The two hens were raised in a dilapidated makeshift tent sheltering plastic garbage in the countryside near my suburban home.
Seeing this, I was dumbfounded. The old garbage collector smiled from ear to ear: "They do eat plastics."
Roaming in the countryside has become my weekend pastime lately and the bucolic views are generally a feast for the eyes - you walk around ponds of lotus, fish and ducks, you walk on raised earth beds covered in grass and flanked by flowers, you see reeds bending in the wind, you see birds fly.
But here and there, you see plastic garbage lining the road or filling the ponds.
As I walked away from the two hens last week and walked further into a 500-mu (33.3-hectare) ecological garden featuring vast stretches of water and plants, I could see piles after piles of plastic garbage bags containing solid, organic kitchen waste and other household leftovers.
They were apparently thrown away by farmers living nearby.
Late Chairmao Mao Zedong once wrote in the 1950s that there was human waste everywhere in the countryside, but today we have plastic waste instead. When hens begin to eat plastic foam, do we dare eat their eggs?
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
