ONE Saturday last May, thousands of people near the affluent lakeside city of Hangzhou clashed violently with police during a protest over a planned waste incinerator. The demonstrators feared it would pollute the air in their bucolic district outside the city centre. They burned patrol cars and caused enough mayhem to force the government to delay construction. A few days ago, work on the facility quietly began. Police, both in uniform and plainclothes, were posted on the road into town to discourage troublemakers.
Such security in China is often a symptom of the government’s intolerance of dissent. In this case, however, it also may have had a positive effect, by giving the environment a much-needed break. As China urbanises, its cities are producing a lot more rubbish. They are running out of good places for landfills and are turning instead to burning rubbish, generating electricity at “waste-to-energy” plants like...Continue reading
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