MunicipalSolid Wasteand Environmental Equity in Urban and Rural Areas
——A Case Study in South Anhui Province
WEI Yongfen
Department of Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China 510275 Email:
Abstract:Nowadays that the shift of Municipal Solid Waste to the countryside[1] has become a very common phenomenon in China. This article provides a case study of the inequity which rural residentsfaced with in the process of the shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside. The shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside has a negative influence on local naturalenvironment, economic development and social stability. Informed by sociological studies of environmental equity, this article employs Stakeholder Analysis of local government, urban residents and rural residentsin M city in SouthAnhuiProvince, and provides insights into the rising concerns on environmental equity and social justice in China.
Key Words:Environmentalsociology, Environmental equity, Stakeholder
Introduction
Since reform and opening, the process of urbanization continuously was pushing forward in China.The rate of urbanization stands at 40.53 % in 2003.Then the figure rises dramatically over the next decade, peaking at 53.73% in 2013 (see Fig.1). Great changes have taken place in China’s urban and regional development. For one thing, rapid urbanization appeared in the eastern coastal areasfirstly, and then there gradually exists three urban clusters of the Beijing and Tianjin pond, the Yangtze River delta and Pearl River delta region. For another thing, there is a sharp increase in environmental pollution. It is important to note that large amounts of municipalsolid wastearetransformed to rural areas withvarious reasons, which havesevere impact to the local development.Nowadays,environmental issues increasingly hampereconomicdevelopment and social development in China.
In the process of urbanization, municipal solid waste, as a product of urban metabolism, is the burden of urban development, and cities are increasingly involved in“city besieged by waste” situation. Chinahas no waste disposal tradition becauseit is common that people throw garbage anywhere for most people who live in the countryside. Sometimes they think it is good that waste will become “food” of many species and improve the fertility of soil. However, rapid industrialization and urbanization, population explosion and non-biodegradable garbageare coming in a short period of time. Chinabegins to meet with the challenge of the waste.According to statistics, the collected amount of municipal solid waste in China increased from 148 million tons to 172 million tonsfrom 2003 to 2013 (see Fig.2) with roughly a 8% annual pace when the amount of safety disposal was 75.45 million tons in 2003 and 153.94 million tons in 2013. So, landfill is a method of getting rid of considerable amounts of waste by burying it in a large deep hole without safety disposal every year. Over time, the problem ofwaste disposal becomesserious and is urgent to be solved.Due to the limit of urban space, landfills are not built in cities. Huge chunks of land are cheap in rural areas, the location of landfill sites are in suburb and rural areas in most government planning. Moreover, urban residents impose high requirements on surrounding environment when rural presidentswho lack a sense of environmental protection may not be fully aware of the potentially negative impact on the landfills.Besides, rural residents’resistance has always been feeble and can not avoid the final tragedy.Based on the above, municipal solid waste will be transported to stack for natural weatheringwithout any pre-disposal in rural areas, namely the shift ofmunicipal solid waste to the countryside.
Based on the above, the shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside seems to be a last resort option. However,land of farmers becomes the commons of urban residents and secondary pollutionhas brought a series of problems to local society and done great harm to the environment. Over thepast decades, there has been a noticeable improvement in waste treatment technology, such as using high density polyethylene film, recycling and reusinglandfill gas, etc. These new technologies are applied to newly-builtlandfills;whilemany landfills that have already been built are still in the use of simple disposal. The existing landfills with a bounty of waste potentially affect local environment. All over China, avariety ofcollective protest occurred frequently caused by the secondary pollution,such as Wanshanwaste landfill pollution in Anhui province, Liulitun waste landfill event in Beijing. What makes things worse is that similar events continue to take place in Panyu of Guangdong,Guilin of Guangxi, Lu'an of Anhui, etc. Rural residents suffer from secondary pollution of the shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside and pay for urban development, which shows environmentalinequity.
Environmental Equity and Its Classification
The concept of environmental equity comes from the outbreak of a large-scale protest in Warren County, North Carolina, United States in the 1980s, which aims to protest the construction of PCB wastes landfill near the communities where black and minority ethnic live in.This movement is now seen as the prelude to the movement of environmental equity. In 1987, the book “The Only Way: Fight forEnvironmental Justice” presents the outbreak in Warren. The book uses the“Environmental Justice” for the first time. In 1988, the State University of New York Press published the book of Peter S. Wenz, “Environmental Justice”. This book describes the fairness, efficiency, and safety issues in the field of the environment and explains the issue of environmental equity in theory for the first time. In 1991, the first time of National Advancement of Colored People's Environmental Leadership Summit held in Washington, more than 200 representatives officially presentthe 17 principles of environmental equity. In February 1994, the then U.S. President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that requires federal agencies to attach importance to environmental equity issues related to minority groups and low-income. Thus, environmental equity issue attracted widespread concern and the concept of environmental equity is worldwide and popular. In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defined environmental equity as: from the aspect of formulation, compliance and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies, all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, income, national origin and level of education, should be given a fair treatment with effective participation.[2]Most scholars who use the terms “environmental equity”,“environmental justice” and “environmental racism” pay little attention to the definition of these conceptions. “Whereas the term environmental racism focuses on the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on communities of color, environmental justice is focused on ameliorating potentially life-threatening conditions or on improving the overall quality of life for the poor and/or people of color.Environmental racism is an example of an environmental injustice”.[3]The terms “environmental equity” and “environmental justice” refer to different. Environmental justice is an important connects of the conceptions of environmentalsafety, environmental equity, environmental order,environmental efficiency and sustainable development[4].And environmental inequity addresses more structural questions that focus on social inequity and environmental burdens. But “overlapping elements are increasingly used to define and address facets of environmental health issues”[5].Environmental equity research formed a variety of theories and schools, mainly be divided into intergenerational equity and generational equity. Page put forward the concept of intergenerational equity and thought that intergenerational equity problem is how the consequences of policy distribute between the future generations.[6] Also, there were some empiricalresearch on Environmental quality equity, Resources and environment equity and equity evaluation method.
In China, concerns on the issue of environmental equity were much later.Fairnessresearch is in the domain of ethics. Andthe study on environmental ethics was started in the 1980s and developed very quickly until the 1990s. At present, research on environmental equityis mainly from two aspects:the study of environmental equity itself first and the relationship between environmental equity and all kinds of problems[7].Different research subjects have different viewson environmental equity.The economistproposes that the essence of environmental inequity is the transformation and extensions of economic inequity and exploring the environmental equity issue and establishing the researchframe work should be in this premise.[8]Cai Shouqiu, who had threecomments on the basic idea of legal science of environment and resources law, pointed that the natural justice, namely,thenatural ecological lawis the main basis to judge if there is equity among various groups.[9]Some scholars adhere to the philosophy that Environmental equity should be the basic concept of the environmental law.[10]HongDayong pointed out that environmental justice has obvious value orientation, which emphasizes the basic value orientation of social to environment problemsand the legitimacy and rationality of this orientation. And environmental equityhas certain instrumentality. It emphasizes on treatingequallywithoutdiscrimination, with the same criterions to measure the environment resources, risk allocation and environmental responsibility[11]. Scholars do not deliberately to distinguish the difference between environmental justice and environmental equity. Environmental equity has two meanings[12]: the first meaning refers everyone should enjoy the right to a clean environment without adversely environmental damage; the second meaning refers that the responsibility of the damage to the environment should be symmetrical with environmental obligations. In the face of environmental problems, the nature of environmental equity is how the risk of environmental hazards equitable distributes in different international, regional and groups. When this distribution is relation with national development, regional economic class, race and other social factors, environment inequity comes. There exists environmental equity on three levels[13]: international, regional and socialgroups. Of the three levels, the regional levelincluding urban and rural inequity and east and west equity, the inequity which is caused by the shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside can be classified as urban and rural environmental inequity.
Environmental Inequity in the Shift of Municipal Solid Waste to the Countryside
Based on a case study in M city of south AnhuiProvince, the author elaborates the impact of the shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside andsecondary pollution on surrounding environment in ruralareas from three aspects: natural environment, economic development and social stability.
M city,in south AnhuiProvince, bordersJiangsuProvinceand ZhejiangProvince. It is of great importance to communicate southeast coastal region with mainland. The area is about 4764.5 square miles and the population is 2.74 million.It is estimated that daily output of municipal solid waste is about 300 tons currently and about 350 tons in summer. At present, M city transit and dispose waste about 220 to 280 tons everyday. The composition of municipal solid waste is that: organic compounds accounting for 60% of the total and inorganic matter accounts for about 40%. garbage every day about 220-280 tons. The recycled material such as waste paper, plastic, glass, metal, fabric accounts for about 20% of the total.[14]
The main method of waste collection in M city is container type. The collection containers are placed in fixed locations, mainly in both sides of the streets, public places and residential area. The sanitation workers collect waste regularly. Waste collection includes: one is that sweepers clean streets and directly push to waste transfer station with handcarts, another is that cleaners of Property Management Company collect waste bags in communities and push all the waste to transfer station. M city has built eight waste transfer stations with compression type. Then heavy trucks transfer municipal solid Waste from transfer stationsto landfills on the outskirts of city.
MCity has two landfills: Xiadu landfill and Xichong landfill in Guquan village. Xiadu lanfill was built in 1995. At that time, municipal solid waste was nowhere to be disposed, and then the government decided to site in Xiadu woodland in the south of the city and build landfill within a short time. Originally, the landfill was planned to cover an area of 10 acres.Now it expands to 50 acresbecause of the growing amount of solid waste, being in close proximity to overload. And the main approach to dispose municipal solid waste is simplydumpandburying. The latter, Xichong landfill was built recent years, being harmless and sanitary.The landfill has specialized leachate treatment pond and landfill gas control equipment. The municipal solid waste in Mcity is mainlytransported to Xiadu landfill, where municipal solid wasteis dumpedwithout any protective measures against leakage and leachate collection. Then the leakage directly enters underground and surface runoff and the landfill gas directly scatters into the atmospherewithout recyclingor any more controls.
The shift of Municipal solid waste to the countryside caused serious problems and had influence on rural environment, which mainlypresents the following characteristics. (1)Larger influence areas: Villages including Xiangchong village, Banqiao village, Pan village and Jiang village are affected by the Xiadu landfill. About 2.1 square miles area is directly polluted. Thecontent and degree of pollutions have differences in different areas. The landfill imposes obvious adverse effect on local residents. (2) Longer influence time: The Xiadu landfill in M city was the main site to dispose municipal solid waste. It was built in 1995 and has been running for about 20 years. From the beginning, large amounts of solid waste were transported here. As time goes by, its negative impact on the region extends with the increasing amounts of waste. (3)Wider influence contents: waste is left to accumulate in unsanitary heaps, which has influence on the natural environment, such as water, soil and air, local economic development and social stability.
(a) On natural environment: Water, soil, air, etc
The shift of municipal solid waste to the countryside has direct impact on rural natural environment. Solid waste is stacked and accumulated with no treatment. Thataffects localwater, soil, air and public health with the damage of the original walls[15] that protectagainst leakage and leachate collection
To begin with, water pollution brought great harm to the health of residents in surrounding villages. Even if the waste istreated in a timely manner, there still would produce large amounts of harmful liquid. Especially on rainy days, a large number of hazardous liquids with the rainfalloverspill. However, solid waste is simply stacked in the waste zone and commonly untreated. Large amounts of toxic and hazardous substances with the infiltration of rain water flow into the ground or alluvial surface runoff, causing water pollution. The river and pond near landfill are brown, with white foam floating on the surface. Local residents now already can not use the original source of drinking water.
In fieldwork, a villager called Pan told to me when we stand near a polluted pond:“This pond provides water for our daily life. But waste water from landfill flows into the pond. A few years ago, more than twenty geese all died in the pond. Then this village had clean tap water and no one came to the pond.”
Further more, toxic and hazardous substances in the soil may be absorbed by the growth of crops, so the local residents who purchase and consume these crops may suffer from health threats. For one thing, solid waste piles up, causing groundwater pollutionand subsequently resulting in the decline in soil fertility.For another, part of the wastewater through surface runoff directly causes fields pollution. Landfill sites in the valley and woodland nearby also suffer some damage due to the construction of landfills and the need for waste dump. Soil erosion phenomenonmay happen at the same time.
Finally, landfill gas generates a lot of negative impact on the health of farmers nearby.The accumulation of solid waste and chemical reactions that produce large amounts of odor, make the area near the landfill share strong acid odor. According to local residents, this gas has sickened them for decades, and the odor is constant throughout the year. Especially given the summer wind direction, odor could be so strong that many rural residents did not open the doors and windows frequently.“In summer, there are many flies on pot lid in kitchen. There are a lot of flies on villagers’ back when farming. Also, there are so many mosquitoes at night.”
(b) On local economic development: Lower output and less investment
The waste pollution has a negative influence on agriculturalenvironment, and it is difficult for local people to develop agriculture. Xaidu lanfill is located at the top valleyof XiaDu woodland and Xiangchong, Banqiao, Panjia and Jiangjia villages are located in the forest foothills. Landfill leachatesewage flow down the valley directly into nearby agricultural land, such as woodland, farmland, ponds and so on, which leads to environmental pollutions on water and land. Moderate profit of agricultural production and the destruction of the production environment of the region make thedevelopment of agricultural production difficulty.