TALKING TRASH: From Waste to Energy
Amy Zeng, Fulbright student and a fellow Talking Trash blogger, has just released a short documentary about Dongran Company. They are in the business of turning urban manure into biogas, an energy source that fuels the company’s facility while also producing organic fertilizer.
Learn how this business and, more generally, anaerobic digestion, is trying to break down (literally!) China’s growing waste problem.
(For our mainland readers, here’s the Youku link to the video)
New ‘Rapid Assessment Framework’ Enables Cities to Analyze, Act on Energy Efficiency
The World Bank Energy Efficient Cities Initiative has just released a new tool designed to help cities use energy more efficiently.
The newly developed “Rapid Assessment Framework” allows for quick analysis in six main sectors where energy is consumed intensively and can most readily be reduced in cities — transport, buildings, public lighting, water and wastewater, power and heating, and public waste — and then delineates appropriate opportunities for efficiency interventions.
The RAF too, which contains a database of 26 key performance indicators (KPIs), allows cities with limited resources to effectively analyze energy consumption and prioritize those planning strategies and policies which will have the most impact in spite of significant budgetary constraints and in accordance with expectations for short-term paybacks. It does this by providing (i) a city energy benchmarking tool complemented by (ii) a ‘playbook’ of tried and tested energy efficiency interventions. Actionable options are analyzed not only for their energy-saving potential, but cost-effectiveness as well.
How to Throw a Sustainable Expo in China
Erect a shrine to fossil fuels, situated so that it is the first building seen upon entry.
One Year Old and Donning New Clothes
To all the loyal NEEDigest readers out there, thank YOU for helping make the first year of this blog a great success!
It’s with great pleasure that, after just over one year of activity, NEEDigest has gained marked recognition for delivering important analysis while broadening its readership.
Also, you may have noticed some changes in our appearance. NEEDigest is now sporting a fancy new host, which will allow readers on both sides of walls everywhere (fire! fire!) uninterrupted access. No redirection, or re-education, necessary.
We are still working out some of the kinks with regard to formatting and style, so please be patient meanwhile. There is much more in store!
- The NEEDigest Team
UNEP Report Urges E-Waste Action, Focuses on China
A new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report – Recycling – from E-waste to Resources (pdf) – identifies the growing problem of e-waste internationally. Includes is the finding that, by 2020, computer related e-waste will be four times 2007 levels. More noteworthy still, is that developing countries – namely, India and China – will be the largest depositories for e-waste.
Whereas previous streams of e-waste originated from abroad, often imported under dubious conditions, the growing trend in China is domestically-generated e-waste, as NEEDigest has reported previously. This pattern matches with growing personal wealth and availability of cheap electronic goods and appliances: two factors combining to produce a culture of disposibility previously absent in China.
In the short-term, government policies may be exacerbating this trend. A small appliance-aimed “cash for clunkers”-type program launched in the fall has reportedly resulted in the disposal – and collection – of 2.39 million used home appliances, including televisions, PCs, refrigerators, washing machines, and air-conditioners within only a few months. But, as the UN report alludes and Shanghai Scrap’s Adam Minter has correctly pointed out, “China doesn’t yet have sufficient environmentally-secure capacity for recycling such a large quantity of used appliances.”
But, before we dive into that, let’s get back to the UN report.
China Diverting Toxic Waste to North Korea, Emerging Information Suggests
China has taken considerable steps in recent years to address electronic waste management practices unsafe for the individuals involved and harmful to local land and water supplies, as NEEDigest has previously reported.
However, China’s limited electronic waste recycling facilities and swelling consumption patterns has rendered domestic containment of toxic trash a serious problem.
Like China, the US and Europe face this predicament, and for years have exported trash to developing countries in Asia and Africa at a lower cost and with fewer environmental safeguards. It is therefore somewhat unsurprising, but no less disheartening, to find out that China, too, is joining the ranks of countries opting to manage waste by having less developed countries manage it for them – often at considerable health and environmental risks.
The newest recipient country is not in Africa or Southeast Asia, as one might expect.
Rather, it appears that waste is being diverted to North Korea, China’s northeastern neighbor, whose western coast lies directly across from China’s prosperous coastal areas and many port towns. This revelation contradicts certain assumptions that North Korea, its economic development stunted due to a centrally planned economy and isolation from the outside world, was comparatively free from the industrial pollution that beleaguers many of its East and South Asian counterparts.
Panyu Residents Victorious in Blocking Planned Incinerator, Expected to Meet 30% Recycling Target in Return
To some, the surge of public action to oppose a planned incinerator in south China’s Panyu city may indicate growing popular environmental awareness, concern and activism in China. To others, the protests are testament to China’s growing urban wealth and the push for “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) movements that often accompany it.
Whether motivated by property values or public health, recent outcries have not been conducted in vain.
Citizen resistance has succeeded in blocking the government’s construction plans, confirmed when district Party secretary Tan Yinghua said in a meeting with local residents yesterday that the entire project would “start from the beginning.” The government pledged transparency and public engagement throughout all steps of the re-planning process, including the environmental assessment, feasibility study, and location decision, according to a report by state-run Xinhua media.
Both foreign and domestic media outlets credit this outcome to the public push back that began last month.
Government, Backed into a Corner on Public Incinerator Concerns, Pushes Back
Beijing municipal officials recently announced plans to continue with seven incinerator projects in the Beijing area, despite protests of nearby residents.
As we have reported before, Beijing’s trash is growing at approximately 8% annually, though the city is capable of treating just over half of what it tosses. Currently, 90% of Beijing’s solid municipal waste is sent to area landfills.
Though source waste reduction, improved recycling programs and more active resident seperation are among the many options available for addressing the problem, local and central level officials have prioritized the building of more incineration plants as their preferred approach.
This stance, combined with a lack of regulatory oversight and monitoring necessary to ensure the plants’ safety and environmental standards, has stirred dissatisfaction among local residents, and prompted vocal protests unseen in years past.
China’s Emissions Targets: a (Non)Reductionist Approach
The past week of events – from a U.S. Senate hearing, to remarks by China’s State Council, to high-level talks in Beijing – have scattered a layer of rich soil from which robust US-China cooperation on climate change might spring forth.
However, that soil is not uniform in content. The issue of quantifiable emissions reductions, central to continued bilateral discussions leading up to Copenhagen, is anything but homogeneously understood, as recent events demonstrate. Read the rest of this entry »
China's Smart Grid Ambitions Could Open Door to US-China Cooperation
China's Power Sector Investment
China’s largest electric transmission company has announced an ambitious plan to develop a national smart grid by 2020 that would help utilities and their customers transport and use energy more efficiently.