Green Options

The theme of China’s annual National People’s Congress taking place this week – the proceedings of which remain highly secretive beforehand – has been largely an economic one.

Although the environment is hardly the priority issue du jour, China has not entirely changed its course with regard to the environment, despite the economic turmoil, as a “worst case scenario” might have suggested. Legislation on the management of electronic waste, signed into effect this week by China’s cabinet, the State Council, is a key example of China’s continued commitment to making progress on environmental protection.

The new law mandates the establishment of centralized funding for enlargement and improvement of safe electronic recycling facilities in China. It also places responsibility on manufacturers, retailers, repair and customer service providers and recycling companies to collect and responsibly handle electronic waste; though the wording of the scope of their responsibility as well as punitive measures for noncompliance is vague.

These regulations aim to reduce a stream of pollution that builds each year. The problem of industrialized countries’ illegal exportation of e-waste on China and other developing countries has generated significant attention and debate in recent years, both inside and outside China. While advocacy groups like Greenpeace point fingers at the corporations for not taking efforts to control the disposal of their products or designing them with fewer toxic components, insufficient legislation and monitoring by both sending and receiving countries has exacerbated the problem.

With milk prices plummeting and dairy farmers facing increased feeding costs, many are culling their herds in record numbers. It seems that the value of a dairy cow is not what it once was in the industry. Other dairy farmers are not buying. Selling cows that have become too expensive to feed to the beef industry has become the only viable option for the struggling dairy farmer trying to raise cash.

In a further effort to reduce costs, male calves are being subjected to even more callous treatment and cruelty as evidenced by the recent dumping of 30 dead calves at the side of the road in San Joaquin County, California.

It’s a decidedly low-tech way to deal with a 21st century problem, but a newly published paper argues that the world can cut carbon dioxide emissions up to 15 percent a year by taking the crop waste leftover after the harvest and dumping it into the deep ocean.

Stuart Strand of the University of Washington and coauthor Gregory Benford of the University of California at Irvine argue in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that such a reduction is possible by dumping 30 percent of world crop residues at least 1,500 meters deep in the oceans. The method would lock up the carbon in the crop waste deep underwater for thousands of years, the authors said.