China will engage its citizens to help ease the country of its lingering dilemma on water pollution through a new and unprecedented campaign called “hei chou he,” which literally means “black and stinky rivers.”
According to Market Place, the new campaign seeks to make people feel the responsibility of caring for the irreplaceable resource by reporting rivers and other bodies of water that have been polluted.
The New Campaign
According to Ma Jun, the director of Beijing's Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, this is the first time that the Chinese government has actually made the people participate in resolving water pollution.
"This is one of the first times for the government to really, actually--not theoretically or abstractly--engage with people. They want people to actually participate in the cleaning up," he said.
While the campaign may have a funny name, Ma believes that it is one of the campaigns that could actually bear actual results considering that the people are now being engaged in something that traditionally have been the government's responsibility.
Furthermore, Ma revealed that the concept of seeking help from the people, the country's biggest resources, to clear water pollution was initiated by his shy predecessor Chen Jining, who has been promoted as the country's new minister of environmental protection.
"And he's continued to try to engage with the public. And he has such an understanding of this issue, and he can talk about this with so much confidence," Ma noted.
Now, Ma and Chen are collaborating in the project and have created a social media app called "Blue Map," which would allow users to monitor the level of water and air emissions from factories all over China.
"So our thinking is that if this data can be shared with the public, then the public who has gotten informed can support the local agencies and can overcome this interference," he explained, adding that this is the first time such information has been disseminated to the public.
Water Pollution
So far, the extent of the effects of water pollution in China has been downright horrifying.
Citing a new study, Tech Times revealed that over 80 percent of the country's underground water are not viable for drinking due to the presence of contaminants such as fluoride, manganese, and other compounds used in fungicides.
Because of this, the East Asia leg of the environmentalist group Greenpeace decided to highlight the issue as citizens of China appear to be taking water pollution more lightly than they do air pollution.
"Groundwater pollution is a massive problem in China which is in urgent need of attention," a statement from its official website read. "Greenpeace East Asia urges the government to include deep groundwater in its testing. Crucially, MEP and MWR cooperation must be both clarified and strengthened."