In today’s world, the waste disposal problem has become one of the biggest challenges that the whole society has to face. Therefore, from a future engineer’s perspective, one way that my country, China, can solve the problem is by applying the zero-waste plan.
Since my country, China, has the largest population in the world and is developing very fast nowadays, there is a big consumption of resources and goods which leads to a very serious waste disposal problem. Because of the fact in China, the traditional ways to solve this problem are not very efficient. For instance, land-filing is one of the most common ways to deal with waste problem. However, because of China’s large population and limited useful land, it is very hard for the government to plan more land for land-filling. Otherwise, there will be not enough land for farming and living, which may cause more problems. Similarly, the other common way, incineration will also bring a big environment problem since the consumption leads to big waste and a lot of these wastes are bad for the environment if we just simply incinerate them like plastic. Hence, for modern China, the best way to solve this problem is to recycle, to work from the first step, by designing anything that cannot be recycled or reused out of the system (Collins, J 2002) which is exactly the way that zero-waste worked. This plan really has a positive effect on this issue. For instance, in Britain, as soon as it applied zero-waste, “they find they are recycling more than 50%” (Collins, J 2002). However, to achieve this aim, we need the whole society’s support. Although industry is the key player, we still need the government’s support and most importantly, everyone’s support. Only in this way, we can really solve this problem, give ourselves, give the whole country and give the world a better future.
Reference: Collins, J (2002, Oct, 3rd.) Radical Plans for waste would herald a big clean-up. The guardian weekly P.25
3/26/2008
the last drop of water in the world
There was once a public advertisement that made a deep impression on me; in the picture there were no trees, no grass, no water—nothing but sand. Then, there was one eye appearing, with a drop of tear and one sentence: Do not make the last drop of water in the world be your tear. I saw this advertisement when I was just a child, it moved me a lot. In addition, it made me start to realize one of the most serious environmental problems in my home country China, is the pollution of water. Nonetheless, it not means that we can do nothing. Actually, we do have some solutions from different aspects, and the most important two are from government and engineering.
Because of pollution from industry and people’s everyday life, the water that can be used for farming and drinking becomes less and less. It is a serious problem for the great increasing population and the development of the whole country. Based on research on the water quality of 700 rivers, approximate 100,000 kilometers, which was done by the Ministry of Water Resources of China in 2002, more than 46.5% of the water had been polluted for a long time; about 10.6% water was too polluted for drinking or irrigation; more than 90% of the water within urban areas were polluted. All these problems lead to the fact that about one quarter of the Chinese population haves to use the water that does not reach the hygiene standards, which means more than 30 million people’s health and lives are affected by the pollution of water. For instance, due to an accident in a chemical factory on the Songhua River in Ji Lin province, the provincial capital city was without water for 4 days.( “Chinese serious water pollution”, 2002)
The effort from the Chinese government is the most essential to protect water from being polluted. There are many ways a government can support the process of preventing water pollution. First is the support of investment. It is very important, because money is the foundation of everything nowadays. For example, to solve a certain pollution of water, it requires experts joined and machines, tools, which all need money. Second is the support from policies and laws’ aspect. Since in today’s world, everyone respects the law, government should make some policies and laws that can guide the associate departments as a reference to do their work, which can make things easier, more efficient. For instance, there are some commissioners of congress pointed out that, the government should make some policies to connect the action of solve water pollution with the officers’ evaluations, in order to encourage them put more effort in it. (“How to solve the problem of water pollution” 2007)Third is educating people about how to protect water, how to protect environment which all these information government can offer to public. Therefore, people can realize the problem, care about it and start to think how to solve it. For example, people may not know the side effect of using washing-powder with phosphorus inside, which can actually eutrophicate water if government never takes some actions to let people know such knowledge. Only when more and more people join the action, we could have the chance to solve it.
In addition to governmental support, engineers can help in two ways. First is to reduce the pollution from those polluted water emitted from factories or other resources. Therefore, we can use some machines by applying both physical and chemical methods to clear away those deleterious elements, like filtrating, chemical reacting. For instance, the technology of membrane can solve some water polluted problems by separating pure water and those polluting stuffs efficiently. In addition, it can be applied by both big factory and individual family, which make it becoming a widely used technology to solve pollution of water. The other way to solve this problem from an engineering perspective could be reusing other water by applying some cleaning technology. For instance, in Singapore, people use some methods to produce “new water” from that waste water. This is an effect way to reduce the pollution of water either.
However, despite the government or engineering solutions, the only way to really solve this problem is from ourselves. Everyone s to understand the situation, understanding we should take actions to protect water and ourselves. Please remember, do not make the last drop of water in the world be your tear.
References
Chinese serious water pollution (2002). In Hua Xia Shui online. Retrieved 14/3/08, from http://www.hwcc.com.cn/nsbd/NewsDisplay.asp?Id=39417
How to solve the problem of water pollution (2007). In Xin Hua online. Retrieved 14/3/08, from http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-12/26/content_7314381.htm
Because of pollution from industry and people’s everyday life, the water that can be used for farming and drinking becomes less and less. It is a serious problem for the great increasing population and the development of the whole country. Based on research on the water quality of 700 rivers, approximate 100,000 kilometers, which was done by the Ministry of Water Resources of China in 2002, more than 46.5% of the water had been polluted for a long time; about 10.6% water was too polluted for drinking or irrigation; more than 90% of the water within urban areas were polluted. All these problems lead to the fact that about one quarter of the Chinese population haves to use the water that does not reach the hygiene standards, which means more than 30 million people’s health and lives are affected by the pollution of water. For instance, due to an accident in a chemical factory on the Songhua River in Ji Lin province, the provincial capital city was without water for 4 days.( “Chinese serious water pollution”, 2002)
The effort from the Chinese government is the most essential to protect water from being polluted. There are many ways a government can support the process of preventing water pollution. First is the support of investment. It is very important, because money is the foundation of everything nowadays. For example, to solve a certain pollution of water, it requires experts joined and machines, tools, which all need money. Second is the support from policies and laws’ aspect. Since in today’s world, everyone respects the law, government should make some policies and laws that can guide the associate departments as a reference to do their work, which can make things easier, more efficient. For instance, there are some commissioners of congress pointed out that, the government should make some policies to connect the action of solve water pollution with the officers’ evaluations, in order to encourage them put more effort in it. (“How to solve the problem of water pollution” 2007)Third is educating people about how to protect water, how to protect environment which all these information government can offer to public. Therefore, people can realize the problem, care about it and start to think how to solve it. For example, people may not know the side effect of using washing-powder with phosphorus inside, which can actually eutrophicate water if government never takes some actions to let people know such knowledge. Only when more and more people join the action, we could have the chance to solve it.
In addition to governmental support, engineers can help in two ways. First is to reduce the pollution from those polluted water emitted from factories or other resources. Therefore, we can use some machines by applying both physical and chemical methods to clear away those deleterious elements, like filtrating, chemical reacting. For instance, the technology of membrane can solve some water polluted problems by separating pure water and those polluting stuffs efficiently. In addition, it can be applied by both big factory and individual family, which make it becoming a widely used technology to solve pollution of water. The other way to solve this problem from an engineering perspective could be reusing other water by applying some cleaning technology. For instance, in Singapore, people use some methods to produce “new water” from that waste water. This is an effect way to reduce the pollution of water either.
However, despite the government or engineering solutions, the only way to really solve this problem is from ourselves. Everyone s to understand the situation, understanding we should take actions to protect water and ourselves. Please remember, do not make the last drop of water in the world be your tear.
References
Chinese serious water pollution (2002). In Hua Xia Shui online. Retrieved 14/3/08, from http://www.hwcc.com.cn/nsbd/NewsDisplay.asp?Id=39417
How to solve the problem of water pollution (2007). In Xin Hua online. Retrieved 14/3/08, from http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-12/26/content_7314381.htm
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