"Environmental Colonialism" to China? Not Really
In recent days, some domestic medias quoted a report from The Daily Telegraph that hundreds tons of household garbage were shipping back to their home country, Britain, due to the refusal of China. In the report, the Britain's Environment Agency has said that if the British government could not find out solutions for the garbage, the streets would be piled up with garbage. And with the rise of Chinese middle class and the awakening of environmental awareness, it will become more and more difficult to shipping foreign garbage to China.
Without this report, we are probably not aware of such a fact that over the past several decades, China has been destination for many foreign countries to dump their garbage. According to the investigation of British government, the container ship from China usually shipping various consumer goods to Britain, while returning China with lots of junks and recycling garbage. It is estimated that the garbage Britain shipping to China reaches 2million tons per year. In Foshan, Guangdong province, Lianjiao village is a "well-known" base for foreign garbage.
It seems that it is not such a proud thing for one country becoming the destination of garbage for another country. On the one hand, the country absorbed the garbage accuse the government failing to exercise its duties: why cannot find ways to stop the entry of foreign garbage. On the other hand, the garbage exporting countries will be called "environmental colonialism" by the environmentalists: why should you discharge your garbage to another country? It is true. When the Sky News exposed the fact in 2006 that Lianjiao village received a large amount of British garbage, the related institutions in Britain have been widely criticized.
Why should one country import garbage from another country? Except of the emotional criticism, we need more rational thinking. Just take the example of Lianjiao village in Guangdong, although it is not so honorable to be called "village of foreign garbage", the foreign garbage really brings benefits to the village. According to statistics, the garbage disposal related industry in the village has amounted to 830 million yuan in 2005. It is the main source of the village collective income and stock dividends. Besides, villagers get a stable and lucrative rental income because of the inflow of many foreign populations,
Then, why can this village benefit from the garbage? The answer lies in the competitive advantages brought by scale and intensive industries. In 1978, when most of the villagers could only earn their living by feeding chickens and pigs, others became rich through collecting garbage outside the village. Therefore, all the villagers began to follow the trend, and the scale for garbage recycling became bigger and bigger. So, Lianjiao village established an industrial district for garbage recycling and gradually became one of the largest waste plastic recycling bases in China.
From the experience of Lianyao, we can see that garbage is not always brings harm to people, if it is handled properly, it can also benefit people. Of course, disposal of garbage bears many environmental risks. In Lianyao, profits come from "C tablets". It is a kind of small white pellets of plastic garbage getting from remelting. And it is the raw material for the production of plastic products. But in the process of plastic recycling dissolving, it will produce harmful gases, dioxins, which are damaging to human bodies as well as to the environment.
But, studies of scientists have shown that every activity bears various risks, not only the garbage disposal industry. But from the perspective of economics, every rational individual can make judgments about their activities based on their knowledge, for example, some people hold that disposal of garbage is not worth the candle; while others think that it is well worth doing. The reason why people have different judgments on the same thing, that is because they hold different individual risk preferences or their valuation of life and the environment is different.
Then how do the different risk preferences form? Apart from some emotional preferences, from my point of view, most of preferences are determined by economic reasons: people with low income cares much more about economic profits, but high wage earners demands a better environment. However, to explain the form of garbage disposal base seems "politically incorrect": why should the low-income groups "deserve" a worse environment?
More than 20 years ago, the then World Bank's chief economist Lawrence Summers in an internal meeting of the World Bank said that compared with the serious pollution in Los Angeles and Mexico City, the air pollution level in sparsely populated Africa is very low. So discharge the pollutant in the "less polluted" developing countries is reasonable considering economic cost. So Summers was criticized as the representative for ecological imperialism because of his explanation of the rationality of the garbage discharge from developed countries to developing countries from economic theories.
To some extent, things we have experienced over the past 30 years of reform and opening up is practices of the theory of Summers. At the beginning, due to the low cost of pollution, we undertake manufacturing process eliminated by many developed countries. As a result, some grassroots got more incomes and acquired better production skills. But now, due to the increase in incomes, our valuation of the environment has changed. A lot of wealthy areas have begun to reject high-polluting and energy-intensive industries, such as Lianjiao village has begun the planning of its transition to a trade center area since 2007. Now it has achieved initial success.
If this explanation is true, we do not need to give too much political significance to the British foreign garbage events, because from the economic point of view it is very simple. That is: As income levels increase, we are increasingly cherish our surrounding ecological environment, perhaps one day we will refuse garbage export too; If transactions are made between two willing parties, medias should not regard it as "environmental colonialism". Of course, the exporting of garbage cannot solve the basic problem, and the final solution roots in the development of garbage recycling technologies. But the improvement of technologies is restricted by economic cost. When there are places for garbage discharging with low cost, who will strive hard to improve technologies?
Originally published on Oriental Morning Post | 2012-11-16
