Rubble, rubble double trouble
Chinese cities are experiencing a surge in illegal dumping of demolished building materials. Even the standard six-story apartment blocks built in the 1960s average six truckloads of waste for every two-bedroom apartment, or thousands of truckloads for clearing an old residential complex.
As an expert in "material balance", Ma Zhong, dean of environment school at Renmin University of China, teaches and preaches against the ignorance of assuming that waste is going to disappear, especially if an average old suburb has enough cubic meters of damaged bricks, cement and rusted iron rods and plates to build a pyramid.
Transporting waste is all cost and no profit. So clearing rubble can mean midnight dumping just across your line of responsibility in the next suburb or county. Dumped piles of debris make roadsides ugly and hazardous.
