Is Beijing getting greener?

Beijing’s struggle to spread its environmental spirit all over the world!

   From 7^th to 10^th of June, people from all over the world gathered in Beijing exhibition center. The world’s largest environmental exhibition was being held, and countless firms and government officials visited here to learn more about Beijing’s growing interest in the environment and its environmental market. CIEPEC (China International Exhibition Protection Exhibition and Conference) was an extraordinarily superb opportunities for a variety of people, including youth.

 In front of the entrance of CIEPEC's main hall, the place where visitors' loads were checked.

   Right after getting a free ticket, there was a quick monitor of my loads just like the one in the airport. After that, writing a register and getting a card were still required. After having finished passing through all those complex ‘entrance tests’, the world’s largest environmental exhibition center halls emerged in front of my eyes.

  Colossal main halls 1A and 1B exhibited Chinese local firms’ products, and the rest of the ten more halls exhibited the products and seminars from China, Korea, Japan, USA, Belgium, Italy, Canada, France, Hong Kong and so on. Hong Kong pavilion had a very lively and exotic atmosphere. “We dismantle computers into the pieces of components and extract useful materials from them or recycle them into another products,” said a representative of an electronic recycling company in Hong Kong, the Li Tong Group. “Our main environmental aim is to ‘reduce natural resources exploitation’. To tell you our standard operating procedures, firstly, we get goods and verify weight and quantify them. Secondly, we remove labels with customers’ intellectual properties. We dismantle, separate and sort the goods. Thirdly, we destroy them and weigh the materials. Lastly, weight verification and issue certification of destruction is carried on. An example for our company’s job can be extracting gold from electric chips and shred parts of computer components into ferrous. We wish to extract as much as we can to save one more useful raw materials and natural resources.”

 

   CIEPEC was a brisk and delightful exhibition. This time in 2011, CIEPEC had its 12^th exhibition in Beijing which started 24 years ago; It is held once in two years. Numerous firms revealed their environmentally friendly products at CIEPEC. Some of them had tanks which filtered polluted water into cleaner tap water, a newly-made flow meters and brand-new machines which measured the level of pollution in the air for 24 hours. Also, several seminars about their environmental strategies and policies were held at parts of each hall. The students interested in environment and environmental business as well as geography and science would be welcomed to visit CIEPEC, as they can attend seminars and wander around and listen to each pavilions’ representatives’ speeches and explanations.

   Now the CIEPEC is receiving more and more attention, as it is one of the international meetings in China, a new "star nation" which has growing markets in almost all fields. It is not a bad idea if one interested in environmental areas visit this extremely huge and enthusiastic ‘environmental festival’ with a Chinese friend beside him. CIEPEC is one of the revealers of China’s growing interest in environment, which rapidly mounted around the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In 1993, China was refused to hold Olympic games in Beijing due to its environmental problems. Since then, Chinese government embarked on environmental plans and projects to appeal the world with the image of a better nature and environment.

 

CIEPEC seen from above. Numerous people from different countries filled up the exhibition center.

Beijing’s environmental condition in 2011!

 

As described above, Chinese government has struggled to raise the quality of China’s environment and to obtain more concerns and helps from all over the world; for example, through CIEPEC, China drew the world's attention on its environmental market. 

    “Breathe in, and feel the delicious chemicals in the air of Beijing!” My friend shouted out loud as we had just placed our sneakers on the land of Beijing international airport in 2008. Beijing was infamous for its environmental pollution and the areas rife with garbage due to the past’s rapid industrialization. However, Beijing in the year of 2011 is not the one like Beijing in the past anymore. China and its government is striving to be ‘greener’ right now.

 

When I just came to Beijing as a little student in 2006, I shivered in a tiny guilt for dropping glasses of juice, used tissues, torn and ripped plastic bags and unrecyclable wastes in the ‘same’ garbage bin. As a girl whom entirely got used to separate garbage collection system, I was shocked to see people throwing away garbage without any identification for the recyclable garbage in Beijing. However, by now, more and more Beijing citizens are taking ‘greener’ actions. Beijing in 2011 has the rubbish bins with ‘recyclable’ and ‘other wastes’ sections for the most of its streets.

 

Beijing’s street in the middle of June had relatively clean and neat figure. Street cleaners in orange uniform were sweeping the street and there was no rubbish on the street. “It seems there is not much garbage, but it’s because we all clean it up,” said a man, one of the street cleaners. “Several people still lack the awareness to put garbage in the rubbish bin. They attach posters and advertisements onto walls and throw garbage away at any place.” Unlike Beijing citizens’ answers that the street is free from much garbage than the past, the cleaners disapproved this. However, in some places, citizens were following the ‘green action’. “Well, we separately put garbage into the bins in our house!” Two local school children said with a definite tone. “I separately throw away wastes from the kitchen and the recyclable ones,” said a housewife in a village. There has been gradual change in the view on the recycle by Beijing citizens.

  However, it was a different case for the residents in a poor local village. On the grayish and dusty cement, piles of garbage were mingled into smelly balls, and almost everyone in the village did not separately dump rubbish. Also, there was no suitable trash can for such action. Though it started to show several advances in the Beijing streets to get rid of countless garbage, several poor villages still suffer from the garbage. It seemed there should be more emphasis of cleaning garbage by Chinese government for them to live in a much more neat and clean environment. My math teacher, a ChaoXianZu(ethnic Korean immigrants living in China) explained this situation. "Clearly, as Chinese government has strived to get better in its envrionment around 2008, although people still throw away garbage anywhere, the increased number of street cleaners these days clean up all the garabage in the street. Only those local villages still need more recognition of the importance of cleaning rubbish."

An untidy road in the rural area of Beijing (top). 
     Neat and clean road in the middle of city; a man is carrying blue recyclable bottles with his bicycle (bottom).

   API (Air Pollution Index) is the measurement of a certain place’s air pollution. 101 API shows unhealthy level, 201 a very unhealthy level, and 301 a very dangerous level. The air of Beijing usually has the API of between 60~90, 20~50 when favorable, and 100~120 when the air is heavily thick with dust and sand. Numerous people are interested in Beijing’ atmosphere, as most of them bet its poor quality. However, most of the Beijing citizens considered the air quality as satisfying and breathable. Some of them even said the quality improved after the 2008 Beijing Olympic game. Before the Olympic games, Beijing were made embarrassing as several athletes publicly announced that they were not participating in the Olympics due to the shoddy quality of Beijing’s air.

  By now, Beijing has much more sunny days with brighter and fresher air. The average API of Beijing from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2007 is known to be around 92.8, but the average API from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2011 is 63.4. There has been much change in the air quality before and after the Olympics. Since the average API from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2008, right before the Olympic game which was in August is around 57.6, it can be considered that Beijing Olympic games had served as a momentum for Beijing to endeavored to make a development its air quality; as what Beijing citizens exactly said. For example, as Beijing is always crowded, Chinese government aimed to reduce cars in China into 240,000 for the air with less chemicals and pollution.

Crowded Beijing full of cars and people; the air that day was a little foggy and stifling.

   These all show Chinese government's attempts for a higher quality of its nature, especially the one in its capital city, Beijing. Obviously, Beijing's environment has made a progress compared to the past, before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Even though several people criticize China for the  pollution in the air, rivers, oceans, forests, soil, food and so on, the fact that China and Beijing's land is too large for the total perfection evenly spread all over their land in the natural environment and the another fact that compared to speedy industrialization, Chinese government has made a great deal of efforts such as numbers of events, exhibitions like CIEPEC, prohibiting smoking inside public places, giving credits to environmentally-friendly companies, roof greening...etc cannot be ignored.

Now the world's eyes are on China, and some even expect it to be the world's most powerful country soon in the future. Its environmental issues will determine China's future of becoming a such country. Beijing's environment, will it make China number one or the last one?