What do you think needs to be done about China's pollution problem?

It’s no doubt that China is the home to the world’s fastest growing economy. Since the late 1970s, China's economy has developed rapidly and continuously, however not without a price. This rapid industrial development has increased pollution and in turn negatively impacted the health of it’s people.



Many of China’s polluted rivers lie in the countryside, where these polluted rivers irrigate the crops that feed the nation. When Sanjay Gupta, as part of CNN Planet in Peril’s team, with went to one of these rural villages to inquire about the polluted water he was confronted by police. Clearly, pollution within China is a touchy subject. Wang Jinnan, one of China’s leading environmental researches is quoted saying “It is a very awkward situation for the country because our greatest achievement is also our biggest burden”. However the statics and the people behind them cannot be ignored. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. The World Bank and China’s own environmental agency, SEPA, estimated that polluted water causes about 60,000 premature deaths each year and is linked to rising cancer rates. Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 % of the 560 million people living in the city breathe air considered safe by the European Union. Thanks to air pollution, 400,000 people a year die prematurely to lung disease. In fact, cancer is now China’s leading cause of death. China has 16 of the 20 top most polluted cities.



Liukuaizhuang a small village just 120 kilometers south of Beijing. Liukuaizhuang was once a quiet rural village before the economic boom started by Communist reforms in December 18, 1978. Only 20 years later, almost 100 chemical plants and low tech factories are scattered across what used to be farmland. Waste from factories producing rubber, paint, plastic and other chemicals have blackened streams, poisoned farmland and polluted the air, creating deadly pollution clusters that locals call “cancer villages”; Liukuaizhuang being one of many. One in fifty people in the village of Liukuaizhuang have been diagnosed with cancer over the last decade, which is around 25 times higher than the national average.



These pollution producing factories are also producing toxic products which are then put on global markets. After companies in China decided to put cheap and toxic alternatives in food, an outburst of pet deaths in the United States and hundreds of people in Panama died from using toxic cough syrup. Recently China had tainted baby milk containing the chemical melamine, which is thought to have caused kidney stones in infants around the world.



Taking a step back and looking at China at a whole, it seems that for the past 3 decades China has put economic growth ahead of the environment and health of its people.



What do you think needs to be done?What do you think needs to be done about China's pollution problem?
There is nothing we as individuals can do, except change our buying habits, which is difficult to do since most goods available for purchase come from China.



And our government will not do much either, since China has, in effect, financed our national debt for years and continues to do so.



The Chinese people must rise up and demand change for themselves.

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