Go Green!

At the end of last summer my dad paid me a wonderful compliment. He said: “Sara, you are really good at recycling.” My parents live a very ecological life. They use a compost, they recycle – everything- and the only thing they throw in the garbage is scraps of plastic and eggshells (doesn’t compost very well). 

They have garbage collection once a month.

You could think that China doesn’t have a clue about the environmental health of the planet. All we hear (and see) is how they are slowly eating up the forests with their wooden chopsticks that they only use once and the overuse of Styrofoam containers for their daily lunches, taken on the streets.

And what about the water bottles? EVERYONE knows that if you drink the tap water you’ll maybe not die immediately but you are forever tainted with heavy metals and other harmful substances found not only in the water but in the polluted air.

Our old apartment on Xin Zhong Street, back in 1997, overlooked not only the hutongs (old style courtyard housing) but also the walled in area inside our walled in compound where the garbage was collected. I believe we put all our waste in one bag and sent it down the chute to … somewhere…where someone took care of it. Once we got tired of studying the daily lives of our neighbors in the hutongs (one bathroom per block, cooking over open fire…very entertaining…) I realized that in our little garbage area, there was a system set up. Our trash bags were opened and sorted through, everything ended up in the right pile; cans in one, plastic in one, food waste in one and so on….(my dad would have loved to see this!) Later, the can-man would come with his three wheeled bike to pick up his treasure to sell or recycle or whatever, the plastic guy would do the same and someone even came to collect the wasted food; I’m thinking to feed pigs or something – or even to compost!

As I was walking down the street the other day, on my way to catch a $2 cab to the nearest store, I met a garbage collector. Same three wheeled bike with a broom and rake to pick up scraps that escape hooked on to the back, same slow but determined pace to reach his destination. The only different thing was, this guy had a Bluetooth device attached to his ear.

Welcome to the 21^st Century. Go green.