sustainability

The Future State of Dong Xiao Kou

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The Future State of Dong Xiao Kou

The Future

It is a warm summer morning in Dong Xiao Kou, Beijing and the newly created recreational people’s park is full of activities. On this warm Saturday morning, people from all walks of life who mainly work in the city of Beijing are relaxed under the cool shades of newly planted trees in Dong Xiao Kou Public Park. Among them are children playing kites and chasing squirrels that have inhabited the large Nut tree a centre of the park. There are also lovers sited at a corner bench wallowing their self-created miasma of romantic moods. At the far edge, a group of youth have bonding activity on the green grass that is new on the where they are playing different games on this newly created facility. This facility lies a once largest e-waste dumpsite in the village of Dong Xiao Kou that have been recreated by members of the community in conjunction with the Beijing county government.

The park is a clean and serene environment that represent the existence of people in the village. Every corner of the park is fitted with at least three garbage cans. There is garbage for organic waste, another for plastic containers and the last one for electronic waste. Each of this can is well placed in locations that people can easily access and read their purposes. The freshness of the air in the park makes a newcomer want to live in the place without having to leave. The park is just a representation of the life in the entire village of Dong Xiao Kou that have been changed through the efforts of different stakeholders in the city of Beijing.

Dong Xiao Kou is a new city with robust activities and residential area. It is a new residential and commercial centre with a series of activities that represents the efforts of different stakeholders towards the sustainability of the environment. From the soil to the air, the freshness of the environment means that there is an engagement that has never been seen before in this place. People are enjoying a new life that could not have been imagined before. All the improvement in the quality of life on this side of Beijing town is as a result of several steps taken to manage electronic waste disposal and processing in the city. The government China government in conjunction with the city of Beijing have created a residential centre with facilities to promote living in the place where the city used to dump e-waste before the banning of informal and small-scale electronic waste processing in the city.

The most important factor in the success of the clean environment in Dong Xiao Kou village is the creation of the Dong Xiao Kou e-waste processing plant. Constructed by the government in 2030, this plant is responsible for the disassembling of electronics generated from different corners of the city. This modern facility disassembles and processes at least 100,000 tonnes of electronic waste in a day. It uses modern technology that ensures zero emission of dangerous substances in the environment. The plant is powered by solar energy that has zero emission of carbon-based gases. This plant also operates in a way that makes it seem almost absent in the environment with the process borrowed from the NADIN electronic waste processing plant in Europe. The net waste from that processing plant is almost zero with nothing going to waste. This bulk processing system also have the very low cost of operation that makes it cheap to run. Consequently, the cost of recycling e-waste in Dong Xiao Kou is lower than the profits generated by the company. The plant further employs about half of the people who worked in the informal processing units of the former processors. These are the people who earn a decent living and live in the newly established homes of the country making about half of the population of the Dong Xiao Kou village. The processing at the government plant poses no threat to the health of the workers and provide them with decent pay that can result in improved living conditions.

Due to the revenue generated from the Dong Xiao Kou e-waste processing plant, residents of Beijing are not required to pay for e-waste collection and disposal services. The plant provides residents with facilities to promote the management of electronic waste in their homesteads. First, the plant has collection bins for not only electronic waste but also plastic and metallic waste in every street in the village. The resident is required to separate waste and place it in these bins. These well-established bins with closed leads and air freshening electronic gadgets are emptied every day by a collecting truck that comes to the village. These trucks collect waste from all the corners of Beijing city and transport the electronic waste to the Dong Xiao Kou processing plant. The responsibility of citizens of Beijing in the management of waste in the city is to take it to the collection bins. The government also provides garbage collection services for other types of waste to compliment e-waste and keep the environment clean.

Sustainability

Viability and integrity of the ecosystem

The community at Dong Xiao Kou has created an eco-system that supports all kinds of living things. The excellent quality of air in the village is an excellent indicator of the ability of its ecosystem to support life. Several environmental recriminations have been done in the village. The first one is the Dong Xiao Kou public park located right in the middle of the village. There are lots of wildlife including trees, animals and flowers with bees sucking honey. The park shows a holistic approach towards managing the integrity of the village ecosystem. Another indicator of ecological integrity is the river flowing through the village. It is full of life as shown by the presence of fish jumping up and down with the flow of water. With the formal dismantling of electronic waste, disposal of chemicals in water and soil is reduced hence ensuring the quality of life. The production of rice in the village has resumed with land producing optimum amounts.

Human and Social Wellbeing

The quality of life in Dong Xiao Kou is high as indicated by the high level of human development index in the city. Most people, 90% in the village are employed in either private or public sector. Presence of social facilities including recreation parks, healthcare facilities, schools and other amenities shows a high quality of life. There is also minimum inequality among dwellers of Dong Xiao Kou as shown by the similarity in sizes and types of houses in the village. Most people are middle to high-income earners with the ability to pay for most of their bills.

Equitable Opportunities for Livelihood and Economic Activities

One of the most important results of the Dong Xiao Kou processing plant is the provision of decent jobs to members of the community in the area. The plant directly employs more than 70% of people in the village with the other members being indirectly involved in waste disposal activities. The earning capacities of people in the village are similar and equal to that of people living in Beijing city. Moreover, the people in the city have equal earning capacity as those living in other parts of China.

Interregional Justice

The result of the creation of the Dong Xiao Kou has impacted other parts of China. The plant ensures that waste from Beijing does not affect the production capacity of lands downriver. The government of China has also abolished trade in electronic waste that ensures that no imports of the product come into Beijing. Only waste generated from within Beijing is dismantled and processed at the Dong Xiao Kou plant.

Inter-Generational Justice

The Dong Xiao Kou e-waste dismantling and processing ensures the sustainability of the ecosystem through recycling of waste. Through this, the means of production for future generations is not affected as the ecosystem is maintained. Continuous improvement of the e-waste collection and processing will also see the future generation get more effective methods of controlling it.

Coherent

The community and government of China have made sustainable measures to ensure the coherence of the creation of the Dong Xiao Kou plant. The first thing was to ensure that the plant provides employment t people living in the area. As most of the former residents of Dong Xiao Kou earned a living from the e-waste dumpsites, the government had to ensure that they were absorbed in the area. The creation of a business model around the plant ensures that it is self-sufficient and sustainable in the wrong run. The government has also taken up measures to ensure the informal processing of waste is eliminated in Beijing by adopting laws against the practice.

Tangible and Plausible

The Dong Xiao Kou e-waste processing plant is based on the NADIN plant in Europe. Most of the technology used in the plant are based on this model. Other parts of the world are also developing such waste processing facilities. Beijing city produces not less than 100,000 tonnes of waste in a year (Tong, 2017). The large size of the plant ensures that it can service the entire city without straining.

Plausibility

This vision is made plausible by the understanding that such a case has been seen in developed world especially in Europe. The government of China had envisioned and promoted such projects in the country for several years before they could create the Dong Xiao Kou plant and the e-waste free environment (Tong, 2017). The model was created through a careful scan of other places in the world primarily in Europe. China has created several pilot projects to conceptualise their futuristic e-waste processing plants (Steuer, Ramusch & Salhofer, 2018). These projects formed the base for the clean environment the city of Beijing now enjoys.

Motivational

The motivation behind the creating of the Dong Xiao Kou plant is the pressure from internal and external government structures to control e-waste dumping by Beijing. Beijing ratified the Basel convention in 2015 and agreed to stop the trade in e-waste (Steuer, 2017). The project was also motivated by the need to create jobs and provide better living conditions for members of the Dong Xiao Kou village. The project was hence readily welcome by members of the community who understood their poor state.

Complexity and Capacity

The Dong Xiao Kou new village and e-waste processing plant represents a marvel of technologies and infrastructure that requires a high-level capacity to develop. The most common issue was the provision of employment for people who were working in informal e-waste processing. The challenge of creating social problems such as unemployment and crime by crossing the e-waste dumpsites of Dong Xiao Kou was hard to crack (Steuer, 2017). The conjoining of challenges helped create a balance in the project.

References

Steuer, B. (2017). Is China’s regulatory system on urban household waste collection effective? An evidence-based analysis on the evolution of formal rules and contravening informal practices. Journal of Chinese Governance, 2(4), 411-436.

Steuer, B., Ramusch, R., & Salhofer, S. P. (2018). Can Beijing’s informal waste recycling sector survive amidst worsening circumstances?. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 128, 59-68.

Tong, X. (2017). From “Waste Village” to “Urban Circular Economic System”: The Changing Landscape of Waste in Beijing. In Carbon Capitalism and Communication (pp. 71-82). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.