Recycling in my hometown and Singapore

My hometown is a small county in China. Since I came to Singapore, I have found several differences between the recycling in my hometown and that in Singapore, in terms of how people deal with spoiled household appliances, how people sort garbage and how recyclable garbage is collected.

In my hometown, if a household appliance breaks down, most people will take it to a repair shop to fix it, because this costs much less than buying a new one. Only when it is not repairable, people will treat it as garbage, and this is when the garbage sorting will take place. To people in my hometown, garbage can be divided into two kinds. One kind can be sold to a rag man from a recycle center while the other kind cannot be sold. People always sell the recyclable garbage such as paper, cans, bottles and spoiled machines and throw the rest away. Consequently, some recyclable garbage is collected by rag men. However, sometimes recyclable garbage is thrown into dustbins beside the streets by people who do not sort garbage. A few people, who are called bag ladies, live on the garbage that is thrown away. They collect recyclable garbage from dustbins and sell it to recycle centers to earn a living. As a result, most of recyclable garbage goes into recycle centers.

In Singapore, unlike in my hometown, people usually throw spoiled household appliances immediately since the repairing fee is quite high compared to the price of a new one. In Singapore, the recycling system works more simply since recycle bins can be found everywhere. So, people in Singapore can just throw their garbage according to the types of garbage and garbage collectors will carry the sorted garbage to where it is supposed to be.

I feel the differences are caused by the disparity of wealth between the two places which appears in terms of social facilities and government policies.

My blog buddy was: guo qi.

We could have avoided the blue-green algae bloom in the Tai Lake in 2007

28 May, 2007, blue-green algae bloom took possession of the Tai Lake in one night. The tap water in Wuxi City immediately became smelly and undrinkable, which brought a lot of trouble to Wuxi citizens’ daily life. The essential reason of the disaster was the superabundant nitrogen and phosphorus in the Tai Lake, which was poured into the lake with industrial wastewater. Since people had realized the reason for years, we could have avoided the disaster by preventing more nitrogen and phosphorus from going into the lake and decreasing the existing amount. The government should have enforced policies on the treatment of wastewater before it was sluiced. The factories should have obeyed the policies to set up facilities to decontaminate their wastewater. However, these basic controls of water pollution were not executed strictly. Blue-green algae bloom burst out several times previously, and people had already known the condition of the Tai Lake. The government should have taken the issue seriously while they only tried to kill the blue-green algae only after a terrible bloom for a short time. Actually there are several efficient ways to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus as long as they are conducted continuously, such as organizing people to fish out the blue-green algae which is natural fertilizer for soil, introducing chubs, who eat blue-green algae, to the lake. If we had faith and patience in improving the water quality of the Tai Lake, the unprecedented blue-green algae bloom should have been avoided.

My blog buddy was: Xue Jie.

Causes of more frequent sandstorms in northeast China

By the definition of Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds. 10 years ago it is considered very rare to see sandstorms in northeast China. However, in recent years, sandstorm has become common spring weather in northeast part of China. Overgrazing, overharvest of ground floras and nonstandard mines in northwest China are three main causes of more frequent sandstorms in China.
Researches indicate that the number of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland. The growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the imbalance of nature. As a consequence, the soil is exposed to the air immediately. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is good herb, for example, liquorices. For economic benefit, people dig out liquorices unlimitedly, which affects the growth of other ground flora as well. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. Furthermore, a splendid amount of minerals distribute over some parts of northwest China. Many nonstandard mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. The constructions of these mines are usually improperly arranged, which leads to large pieces of exposed ground. The waste is disposed without decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil.
In conclusion, overgrazing, overharvest of ground flora and nonstandard mines damage the plants and degrade soil into sand. Every spring, wind blows sand up and travels to east without the block of trees. Consequently, sandstorms become more frequent in northeast China.

My blog buddy was: Saw.

A lie i told

“Toot. Toot. Toot…”I held my mobile phone clinging to my ear, hand trembling. I did not know whether I hoped the call would be connected or not.
“Hello?” finally it was connected. A familiar silvery voice came into my ear.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak normally, “Hello. How are you these days?”
“Sister!” my cousin shouted, full of excitement. “I’m fine. So what’s the matter?”
My heart beat faster and faster; my perspiration was running down my checks; my breath paused. Finally, I told a tie, as I had planned. “Nothing, I just want to call you.”
Actually, there was something. I knew she was seriously ill. I wanted to ask her how she felt, I wanted to encourage her and I wanted to tell her I am concerned about her. However I could not do these, because her illness was a taboo in our family. I occasionally got to know it when my mother leaned it out unintentionally. The reason why it was a taboo was that she did not know her state of illness exactly. What she knew was only that she fainted few days ago.
“Now I am in your home. We are having dumplings!” her laughter pulled me back to the reality. “Today is Thursday. How can you be in my home?” “Err, I have a fever.” It was her turn to tell a lie. What I could do was just to let our lies go on. Perhaps the lies would last until her surgery. Fortunately, through the simple lies, at least I found her condition was much better than I had thought.
I understand profoundly it is painful to tell lies to our beloved ones. However, more or less we will get some comfort since the cause of the lies is love.