Early to Late Twentieth-Century Approaches to Waste Management in Shanghai, Chengdu and Hong Kong

RUHR-UNIVERSITÄT BOCHUM Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften

The Trash and Treasures of Chinese Cities: Early to Late Twentieth-Century Approaches to Waste Management in Shanghai, Chengdu and Hong Kong

Dissertation

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

des Dr. Phil.

vorgelegt von

NELE FABIAN

aus Essen

Referentin: Prof. Dr. Christine Moll-Murata

Korreferent: Sen. Prof. Dr. Heiner Roetz

Bochum, den 20. Dezember 2019 Table of Contents

List of Figures, Maps and Tables ...... i Conventions ...... iii

Introduction ...... 1 Waste in the Context of China’s Environmental Crisis ...... 2 ‘Conquering Nature’ in China’s History of Thought ...... 5 Why A Historical Investigation of China’s Waste Problems? ...... 7 Outline of the Thesis ...... 10 Aims and Scope ...... 10 Structural Outline and Methodology ...... 11

Insights from Studying Chinese Waste History: The State of the Field ...... 25 “Waste” as A Social Construction ...... 26 Waste Problems Viewed through A Historical Lens ...... 29 Waste in Chinese History ...... 34

Part I: Institutional, Legal and Organizational Frameworks to Waste Management ...... 41

1. Waste Administration: A Local or a National Responsibility? ...... 43 1.1. Waste in the Context of East Asian Hygienic Modernity ...... 46 1.1.1. The Introduction of Public Health to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu ...... 47 1.1.2. From Public Health to Waste Management ...... 50 1.2. Sanitary Institution Building: The Origins of Centralized Municipal Waste Management, 1900–1940s ...... 51 1.2.1. Sanitary Administration in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Chengdu ...... 51 1.3. Regulating Urban Sanitation and Waste Removal, 1900–1980s ...... 62 1.3.1. Decontaminating the Cities: Waste Management Regulations before 1949 ...... 63 1.3.2. National in Theory, Local in Practice: Implications for Waste Management in the People’s Republic’s Rule of Law and Public Administration ...... 81 1.3.3. Waste Pollution as a Catalyst for Environmental Lawmaking in Mainland China (1970s to 1980s) ...... 92 1.3.4. Hong Kong: The Struggle with Sustainability (1950s to 1980s) ...... 103

2. Waste Production, Waste Collection, and Sanitary Education ...... 110 2.1. Urbanization and Waste Production: Statistics on Urban Waste Growth ...... 111 2.1.1. Twentieth-century Urban Demographic Development ...... 113 2.1.2. Twentieth-century Urban Waste Growth ...... 118 2.1.3. Discussion ...... 125

2.2. Local Characteristics of Waste Collection ...... 128 2.2.1. Household Waste as Fertilizer ...... 129 2.2.2. Street Cleaning and Waste Removal, 1900–1949 ...... 147 2.2.3. The Influence of the New Life Movement and War Time Sanitation ...... 167 2.3. Postwar Structural Changes in Urban Sanitation, 1949–1980: Reorganization and Campaigns ...... 180 2.3.1. Everybody’s Responsibility: Street Cleaning in Communist Campaigns ...... 182 2.3.2. Cleanliness Standards and Waste Collection ...... 192 2.3.3. Adjusting to Urban Density: Organizational Challenges of Mid to Late Twentieth-century Waste Collection in Hong Kong ...... 199

Part I: Summary ...... 212

Part II: Waste Pollution and Notions of Sustainability ...... 214

3. Fighting and Creating Pollution with Technology: Historical Explanations for Landfill Dependence ...... 215 3.1. The Role of Reclamation in Colonial Hong Kong’s Landfill Scheme .... 219 3.1.1. The Decline of Waste-based Reclamation: The Case of Gin Drinkers Bay Landfill ...... 223 3.1.2. Waste Pollution and a Beginning Landfill Dilemma: Mitigation Attempts of the Late Colonial Phase ...... 226 3.2. The Failure of Incineration Technology in Semi-colonial Shanghai and Colonial Hong Kong ...... 229 3.2.1. First Considerations on Incineration ...... 229 3.2.2. The Limits of Landfilling in Shanghai’s Foreign Concessions ...... 235 3.2.3. Landfill Dependence in Hong Kong ...... 242 3.3. Catering to National Recycling: Waste Management Technologies in Revolutionary Shanghai and Chengdu ...... 248 3.3.1. Landfilling, The ‘Three Wastes’ Campaign, and Industrial Waste Pollution ...... 248 3.3.2. Machine-based Waste Management during the Mao Era ...... 257

4. Turning Waste into Treasures: Twentieth-century Circular Economies ...... 263 4.1. Long-term Informal Recycling Structures ...... 265 4.1.1. The Scavenging Business in jindai China ...... 268 4.1.2. Transformation and Continuity in the Informal Recycling Sector during the Revolutionary and Reform Periods ...... 281 4.2. “Thrift and Hard Work”: A Close-up Look at Sustainability Knowledge Building in the Context of National Recycling ...... 289 4.2.1. Definitions of Waste in the ‘Recycling Manuals’ ...... 295 4.2.2. Long-term Adaptations of Recycling Knowledge and Ideology ...... 299

Part II: Summary ...... 306

Conclusion ...... 308

Bibliography ...... 321

APPENDIX ...... I

Data Corresponding with the Illustrations in Chapter 2.1 ...... I Population Development ...... I Waste Production ...... III Miscellaneous Illustrations on Waste Collection and Treatment ...... X List of Figures, Maps and Tables

Figure 1. The Population of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s–1940s ...... 114 Figure 2. The Population Composition of Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1930s ...... 117 Figure 3. Total Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s ...... 119 Figure 4. Total Annual Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s ...... 119 Figure 5. Total Annual Waste Production in Shanghai, 1900s to 1940s ...... 121 Figure 6. Per Capita Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1950s to 1980s ...... 123 Figure 7. Unloading Waste at Gin Drinkers Bay Refuse Dump, Hong Kong, Ca. 1956...... X Figure 8. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, Hong Kong, 1953. Refuse Collection: By Baskets” ...... XI Figure 9. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, Hong Kong, 1958. Removal of Night-Soil from Premises and Flushing of Drains” ...... XI Figure 10. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, Hong Kong, 1953. Refuse Collection: By Hand-cart” ...... XII Figure 11. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, Hong Kong, 1953. Refuse Disposal. Refuse Barge Stations Where Refuse Is Unloaded Onto the Barges: Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po.” ...... XII Figure 12. “Forging Steel from Waste Iron and Waste Steel.” Educative Illustration on Metal Recycling...... XIII Figure 13. “Shanghai shi Weisheng ju banyun laji zhi qiche 上海市卫生局搬运垃圾之汽车 [Waste Transport Cars of the Shanghai Municipal Public Health Bureau]” ...... XIII Figure 14. “Da li shougou shougu—zengjia sheyuan shouru—zhiyuan guojia jingji jianshe! 大力收购兽骨——增加社员收入—— 支援国家经济建设 [Vigorously Purchase Animal Bones— Raise the Income of Every Member of Society—Help Build Our National Economy],” 1966 ...... XIV Figure 15. “Feipin shi ge bao—yongchu zhen bu shao… Ben shi yizhi wuyue huishou de ji xiang zhuyao feipin de yongtu xiao tongji 废品是个宝——用处真不少本市一至五月回收的几项主要废品的用途小统计 [Waste Is A Treasure with Quite A Lot of Use… A Small Statistic of the Extent to Which Our City Has Recycled Some Important Waste Categories During the Month of May]” ...... XV Figure 16. “Jiji shouji chushou feipin—zhiyuan shehuizhuyi jianshe… Shi Feipin caigou gongyingzhan tiaozheng duozhong feipin shougou jiage 积极收集出售废品——支援社会主义建设

i 市废品采购供应站调整多种废品收购价格 [Vigorously Collect and Sell Waste Items—Help to Establish Socialism… The Municipal Waste Purchase and Supply Station Has Adjusted the Purchasing Prices of Various Waste Categories].” ...... XV Figure 17. Informal Recyclers in Late Qing Chengdu: Scavenger, Rag and Charcoal Picker, Glass Collector, Newspaper Collector (Left to Right, Top to Bottom) ...... XVI

Map 1. Phases of Land Reclamation in Hong Kong, Mid-1800s to 2000 .... 222

Table 1. The Population of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s–1980s ...... I Table 2. The Population Composition of Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1930s ...... II Table 3. Total Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s ...... V Table 4. Total Annual Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s ...... VI Table 5. Per Capita Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1950s to 1980s ...... X

ii Conventions

Chinese Characters and Transcription of Chinese Characters

According to the conventions in the People’s Republic of China, all Chinese characters are transcribed in Pinyin. In the main text, exceptions are made in the case of place names from the Hong Kong region and historical personalities from Hong Kong whose first language was Cantonese: they are transcribed in Jyutping first and in Pinyin second. For uniformity, all bibliographical references in Chinese languages are transcribed in Pinyin. Terms transcribed in both Pinyin and Jyutping are italicized, with the exception of proper names, place names, and names of local or national-level authorities, which are printed in normal type. This thesis uses simplified characters throughout the manuscript, except in cases of proper names and place names from the Hong Kong region, for which traditional characters are used.

Citation of Primary Sources: Abbreviations

Citations of primary sources from local or regional archives use the following abbreviations:

CMA Chengdu Municipal Archives PRO Public Records Office, Hong Kong SMA Shanghai Municipal Archives SPA Sichuan Provincial Archives HKMH The Hong Kong Museum of History Resource Centre

iii Introduction

This study is the first full-length contribution to the exploration of China’s twentieth-century relationship with waste. Focusing on urban waste, it gives a much-needed, longue-durée overview on multiple dimensions of the topic. It addresses the development and transformations of different socioeconomic notions and definitions of ‘waste’, perceptions of and reactions to waste pollution, the transformation of urban ecosystems exposed to waste, waste policy and management, and the social relationship to consumption and sustainability. It is designed as a groundwork study that approaches the topic from a wide historical angle; positioned at an interface between environmental and social history, and bringing in also elements of political history and the history of technology, it lays a broad basis for future studies that may want to look into very specific questions and may be situated more squarely in one of the abovementioned historical disciplines. The main goal of the longue-durée perspective in this thesis is to provide insights into the importance of long-term knowledge-building and learned practice patterns in the twentieth-century Chinese relationship with waste, both of which are prerequisites to China’s present-day capacities to deal with mass waste accumulations and waste pollution. Within the field of Chinese history, this thesis will clarify the significance of the topic of waste for Chinese social and environmental history. In the context of global social and environmental history, it offers a first comprehensive perspective on the Chinese, also as representative of an East Asian, historical relationship to waste in a Western language to counterbalance the strong dominance of the ‘Western-centric’ studies that already exist. For the global environmental studies, it will provide another strong example for the significance of social and cultural processes in any society’s relationship with the environment and the way they form locally specific knowledge and behavior. This thesis seeks to make two main statements: Firstly, waste pollution in China is not merely the result of the last forty-or-so years of rapid development. Rather, the origins of urban waste pollution in China date back to the beginning of the twentieth century, and present-day waste problems have to be seen not as a recent form of challenge but as the continuation of unsolved problems from the past, some of which still affect the efficacy of waste management in Chinese

1 cities until the present day. Secondly, despite a problematic historical relationship with urban waste as a pollutant, twentieth-century Chinese history also features a strong relationship with waste as a resource. Waste management continuously took place in a field of tension between a struggle for pollution control and large- scale sustainability structures; this field of tension is what makes the basics of waste management in China differ significantly from the historically dominant approach in the Global North, which used to be aimed primarily at an industrialized ‘elimination’ of waste (much of which has certainly rather been a ‘displacement’ from the public view than actual ‘elimination’). It has historically led to ambiguities within China’s relationship to waste but could potentially also serve as a source of inspiration for future approaches to more sustainable waste management. Within this argumentative framework, this thesis will answer the following questions: Firstly, which concrete structures, practices, and knowledge backgrounds determined the severe urban waste problems that China experiences today over the course of the twentieth century? Secondly, how did Chinese urban societies interpret and cope with waste pollution, and how did their interpretations and strategies change over time? And thirdly, what remnants of historical concepts of sustainable waste management could future approaches work with?

Waste in the Context of China’s Environmental Crisis Waste pollution poses a serious threat to human health and the environment. In the last two decades, global waste pollution has reached a degree that can no longer be ignored. Unlike in previous decades, it has thus slowly received rising media attention that first raised debates about unsuitable disposal of plastics and landfill problems, then about electronic waste exports, and, most recently, about ocean plastic and microplastics in our food chain. Although medial interest in such topics comes and goes in waves, a rising awareness for the long-term risks and uncontrollability of waste problems as well as its interfaces with climate change are beginning to reshape discourses around safe living and environmental compatibility of consumerist lifestyles. An awareness of waste pollution inevitably links our consumption habits with rising levels of toxicity in our living environment and its life-sustaining capacities. After already having painfully come to realize the fatal consequences of air pollution, now we have to face that

2 also the safety of the food we eat and the water we drink, the soil and waters we use to grow that food, the consumer goods we buy, and the future safety of our resource supply are all intrinsically linked to our inability to consume sustainably, to nature’s shrinking capacities to absorb what we throw away, to previously unacknowledged forms of toxicity and to irreversible environmental damage. Waste has become a new symbolic warning example for our transgression of planetary boundaries, the scope within which the earth system is still able to safely cope with rising anthropogenic pressure. As these boundaries are being transgressed, abrupt global climate change with a variety of secondary effects that produce unpredictable risks can no longer be excluded or avoided. These boundaries, as Rockström et al. have identified in their groundbreaking article of 2009, include gradual climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone, global P and N cycles1, atmospheric aerosol loading, freshwater use, land use change, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution. 2 Waste contributes to a transgression of several of the above boundaries. It is not only a pollutant but also a direct contributor to climate change, and thus always a global problem: as stated in the United Nation Environment Program’s (UNEP) 2015 Global Waste Management Outlook, a statement report published in context with the UN’s “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” of 2015, waste is a major factor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with methane gas from landfills all over the world having contributed a total 3% of global GHG emissions in 2010. The report identifies waste as “a cross-cutting issue impacting on many aspects of society and the economy [...] such as health, climate change, poverty reduction, food and resource security and sustainable production and consumption”. It also states that waste management should be “viewed as an entry point to address a range of such sustainable development issues” and declares that sustainable waste management it is not only a basic need of any society but also a “basic human right”.3 In countries that already bear a high load of other environmental problems, such as the People’s Republic of China, waste pollution is especially threatening. It is yet another factor to an environmental crisis that has already lasted for decades and still remains unresolved. Several of China’s most pressing

1 “P and N” refers to biogeochemical nitrogen and phosphorus, emitted in industrial and agricultural processes and absorbed in soil and waters. 2 Rockström, Johan et al., “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity.” See esp. figure 4. 3 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), “Global Waste Management Outlook,” 7–8. 3 environmental crises, such as soil contamination and water (including drinking water) pollution, are directly related to waste problems, especially with regard to industrial wastes and discharges.4 Critics, such as environmental historian of China Judith Shapiro, identify China’s present environmental problems with 1) its rapid transition from a “less developed country” to “already a superpower”,5 which has given important mitigation infrastructures very little time to keep up with the country’s economic dynamic; 2) with the negative effects of China’s “decentralized authoritarianism”6; and 3) weak implementation of environmental law.7 The term ‘decentralized authoritarianism’ refers to the executive system in China’s one-party state, where central government directives are often insufficiently aligned with the political and administrative realities at the local level, causing difficulties to establish nationwide standards or implement new central government directives uniformly throughout the country. As a result, China’s environmental governance remains mainly top-down and “crisis-driven” (damage-reducing instead of damage-preventing), and fails to “foster a sustainable, long-term environmental governance structure” at the national level.8 Another built-in mechanism of the executive, a 5-year turnover for local cadres in responsible positions, is one more factor that, according to political historians of China Sarah Eaton and Genia Kostka, impedes the implementation of long-term environmental goals and directives.9 Although frequent turnovers can certainly also bring positive change, they destabilize planning processes that exceed a five- year period, especially if economic and power policies are prioritized and do not comply with environmental goals, as is often the case.10 Eaton and Kostka argue that these mechanisms weaken the political followthrough in environmental governance that could be, at least in principle, expected from authoritarian states like China.11 But it is not only the organization of governance that causes

4 Cf. Economy, Elizabeth C., “The Great Leap Backward?, The Costs of China’s Environmental Crisis,” 41–43. See also, by the same author, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future, esp. chapter 1, for a general investigation on this subject. 5 Shapiro, Judith, China’s Environmental Challenges, 11. 6 Cf. Economy, Elizabeth, “Environmental Governance in China: State Control to Crisis Management,” 184. 7 Ibid., 193. 8 Ibid., 185. Cf. also Landry, Pierre F., Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era. 9 Eaton, Sarah, and Kostka, Genia, “Authoritarian Environmentalism Undermined? Local Leaders’ Time Horizons and Environmental Policy Implementation in China.” 10 Harris, Paul G. et al., “China and Climate Justice: Moving beyond Statism,” 185. 11 Eaton and Kostka, “Authoritarian Environmentalism Undermined?,” 360, 363. 4 problems: Judith Shapiro identifies yet another determining factor in China’s current relationship with the environment, which is the question of national identity. Core beliefs, ideologies, and governance strategies are strongly related to China’s interpretation of its past and vision of its own future, which is undergoing constant reinterpretation. Shapiro argues that China’s position towards the environment is likely to remain ambivalent as long as the quest for identity is ongoing. 12 As this quest is also strongly influenced by China’s ambiguous relationship with the ‘West’, environmental problems remain highly symbolic of diplomatic conflict. The ‘West’ has been habitually criticizing China for not coming to terms with the environment, insisting on China’s key role in global climate change mitigation. China, on the other hand, continues to claim its own ‘right to growth’, pointing out that it was the Global North’s initially unregulated development that caused climate change in the first place.13

‘Conquering Nature’ in China’s History of Thought

At this point, it is important to understand the philosophical heritage that China’s relationship with the environment is influenced by, especially since the Communist Party’s proclamation of the so-called “harmonious society” (first announced in 2011) includes at least a verbal commitment not only to sustainable development but also to confidence about and identification with China’s cultural and philosophical traditions. Obviously, common beliefs that there exists a universal concept of “man and nature as a unity (tian ren he yi 天人合一)” in Chinese history of thought have lost much of the popularity that they used to have in the face of China’s present environmental crisis. According to Heiner Roetz’s detailed analysis in Mensch und Natur im alten China, this notion, although there are traces of it in the Chinese history of thought, was already a myth to critical thinkers of Chinese antiquity, and it was challenged by very different world views that various philosophical schools had to offer.14 The philosophical Daoism of the Warring States period (476–221 BCE), and especially one of its main representative texts, the Zhuangzi 莊子, has been prominently mistaken as a representative of this

12 Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 12. 13 Cf. Harris et al., “China and Climate Justice,” 303. 14 Roetz, Heiner, Mensch und Natur im alten China. Zum Subjekt-Objekt-Gegensatz in der klassischen chinesischen Philosophie. Zugleich eine Kritik des Klischees vom chinesischen Universismus, 78–79. 5 assumed “Chinese universism”. Although this text features the notion of a prehistoric, ideal state of unity between man and nature before the emergence of any given first ‘anthropogenic footprint’, Roetz points out that the Zhuangzi’s primary goal is to refer to the ideal state of unity as a means of political criticism and philosophy of a good life. It aims at the recreation of harmony with the cosmos at each individual’s personal level, while at the same time assuming that any true ‘unity’ is already eternally lost.15 After all, most philosophical schools of the Warring States period did not follow so much a mystical rather than a strongly political agenda, seeking to give explanations why the known world had fallen apart in war, and suggestions on how to regain stability. Daoism’s answers included the first explicit eco-criticism of Chinese history: it explains the state of political chaos as a result of permanent separation of man with nature’s ways and thus calls for resistance against humanity’s constant domination over and destruction of nature, which, in Chinese antiquity, was already clearly visible in the form of deforestation and transformation of landscapes into agricultural surfaces, with all of their secondary side effects.16 But like Buddhism, the bio-protective leitmotifs of which are another example for ecologic thinking in Chinese history of thought,17 the teachings of Daoism were oriented at the individual—as well as at the ruler of a state, individually—, and therefore difficult to translate into complex state politics. This is different in the case of confucianist Xunzi’s 荀子 (3rd century BCE) philosophy. As Heiner Roetz discusses in his monograph, Xunzi identifies man’s capability to interfere into nature’s course, redirect it, and ultimately control it, as does the Zhuangzi. But instead of seeing acts of destruction in these processes, Xunzi regards it as an economic benefit as well as an expression of and even a prerequisite for the development of human civilization. Viewing humanity and nature as counterparts, the former being the subject and the latter the subordinate object, he concludes that nature—originally unstructured, chaotic and unsuited to provide for large populations—, should be subjugated and brought into shape and function through the efficient application of knowledge and skill.18 Importantly, although Xunzi’s approach treats nature as a ‘thing’, Roetz argues that it does not imply blind

15 Ibid., 226–227. 16 Ibid., 80–83, 17 Cf. Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 90. 18 Roetz, Mensch und Natur im alten China, 312, 315–317. 6 exploitation of resources. In fact, Xunzi teaches that submission will only be successful if nature’s inner dynamics and mechanisms are respected and followed. While Xunzi does not see acts of going against nature’s ways as ‘violation’, as the Zhuangzi would, such acts would limit the desired benefits in a utilitarian sense.19 In a way, this, too, is essentially ecological thinking, as the idea to intelligently cultivate nature does not legitimize destruction, nor does it suggest that nature’s reserves are inexhaustible. As confucianist traditions following the classical period, however, seem to have stressed mainly the aspect of submission in their interpretations of Xunzi’s thought, exploitation and destruction have taken place at large scale throughout the entire history of the Chinese Empire and beyond, as key publications in Chinese environmental history such as Mark Elvin’s Retreat of the Elephants and Robert B. Marks’s China: An Environmental History discuss in great detail.20 As concerns the more recent past, the Mao era holds a special legacy when it comes to China’s relationship with the environment since it instrumentalized Xunzi’s call to conquer nature as a central political paradigm, transgressing the utilitarian approach and outright going to war against nature.21 The conquering paradigm continues until the present day: as Shapiro argues, it is symbolized especially by mega-projects in geo-engineering such as the Three Gorges Dam (Sanxia daba 三峡大坝) or the South–North Water Diversion project (Nanshui beidiao gongcheng 南水北调工程).22

Why A Historical Investigation of China’s Waste Problems?

In his article “Chinese Politics and Environmental History” Kenneth Pomeranz finds that despite the changing times, the Chinese government’s relationship with nature is ultimately still one of conqueror-versus-enemy. Nature is often viewed as an obstacle to industrialization and economic progress that needs to be outsmarted through new technology. 23 China’s relationship with waste falls squarely into this pattern. Two important acknowledgements are missing in the present strategy: first, a proactive inclusion of the civil society into decision-

19 Ibid. 325. 20 Elvin, Mark, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China; Marks, Robert B., China: An Environmental History. 21 See esp. Shapiro, Judith, Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cf. also Marks, China: An Environmental History, chapter 7. 22 Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 104. 23 Pomeranz, Kenneth, “Chinese Politics and Environmental History,” 353. This view is still supported in more recent publications, for example, in Shapiro’s China’s Environmental Challenges, 104. 7 making processes and the development of ways to cut waste at source and think towards a circular economy.24 Second, considering the global dimensions of waste pollution in future waste management approaches. As Judith Shapiro argues: “Environmental issues do not stop at state borders. [...] What China does affects global climate change, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, desertification, acid rain, commodity prices, fisheries, wildlife migrations, and a host of other environmental challenges.”25 It is not only the impact of waste on climate change that gives it a global dimension but also its close relationship with consumer culture, population growth and urbanization. The constant growth of the Chinese middle class will without doubt lead to further rising consumption levels, especially since the economic isolation and stagnation as well as the hardship and scarcity of China’s revolutionary past are not yet forgotten and seem to make the contemporary Chinese society especially attracted to material status symbols and consumerism.26 And although China’s own population growth has significantly slowed down, the predicted general population explosion of Asia will most likely affect it nonetheless: as UNEP summarizes, Europe’s and the Americas’ total populations are predicted to stay more or less stable over the upcoming decades while Asia’s and Africa’s populations are predicted to skyrocket. Already by the 2040s, Asia’s total population will peak at about 5 billion, which would make up for almost half of the presumed total global population of 11 billion that is predicted for the late twenty-first century. Thus, as a matter of fact, a large part of global consumption—and throwing away—will take place in Asia by that time. In addition, 80% of the global population will be living in cities, which generally have a far higher waste load than rural areas.27 Unless global consumption habits and resource distribution are transformed from the usual linear (production– consumption–destruction/disposal) to a circular (“cradle-to-cradle”) pattern, waste is likely to intensify or complicate other environmental problems, many of which may cross national borders. As far as can be predicted, China itself is going to be severely affected by climate change and struggle with a host of intensifying environmental problems beyond waste management that will especially endanger

24 Cf. Economy, “Environmental Governance in China,” 184. 25 Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 2. 26 Cf. Ibid., 104. 27 UNEP, “Global Waste Management Outlook,” 59, iii. 8 its food and water supply.28 Not only is it thinkable that space reserved for or affected by landfills could cause conflict over urgently needed agricultural surfaces but there is also a quickly closing time window for China to gain control over its resource management and look into cross-national solutions for future mutual support. In the search for solutions, Shapiro’s aforementioned question concerning China’s own identity in its relationship with nature is crucial. This identity, in turn, is generated not only on the basis of certain schools of thought but also in the course of specific historical events, which not only form a background for different beliefs, interpretations, and ideologies but also shape the development of specific knowledge, practices, and experience over time and in dealing with specific problems and challenges. Certainly, in the case of waste pollution, China’s most severe problems have developed only a few decades ago mainly as a result of economic development and industrialization. Answers about the origin of these specific problems may not be found by taking the analysis back through centuries in time as pre-modern waste problems may simply be of a completely different quality than the problems of the present. Still, waste problems do not emerge out of the blue and the reasons behind them are more complex. Societies need time to adapt to rising quantities and changing qualities of waste accumulations in order to form strategies based on their interpretation of and relationship with the natural environment, which are also undergoing constant change. Under these circumstances, much can happen within the time span of one century that may contribute to the emergence or prevention of severe waste pollution. Without an historical analysis, conclusions on present-day waste problems are inevitably reduced to economic and technological reasons, ignoring the fact that societies may interact with waste—and, in the same context, the natural environment—on more complex levels than just the level of discarding, polluting, and technical problem solving, and that different habits and principles that constitute this interaction forms and changes over longer periods of time. The historical lens therefore remains a crucial tool for the understanding of a society’s relationship to waste problems. Uncovering past events that have contributed to the formation of certain convictions, the establishment of coping strategies that society now knows well and is used to, and the manifestation of persistent

28 Shapiro, China’s Environmental Challenges, 48. 9 structural problems can facilitate an in-depth reflection of contemporary problems. Due to the topic’s close relationship to consumption, policy and administration, material culture, and technology, any general, explorative approach to the history of waste treatment will be situated at an interface between environmental, political, and social history as well as the history of technology. Consequently, this thesis is not designed to fall into one of those fields unambiguously. As a groundwork study, it is designed to explore the topic at maximum breadth, leaning into all of these fields in the attempt to provide a first, wide-ranging overview on the scope of the dimensions of interaction of the Chinese society with waste, rather than to explore only few of these dimensions in great depth. While this approach will certainly leave a variety of questions unanswered, the fact that it does not fit squarely into one historical discipline does not have to lead to disintegrated results, as the relationship with the environment always remains a common interface. As Stephen Mosley has identified for the “common ground” between environmental and social history, the basic paradigm is always about the ways in which “human action and environmental change are intertwined. Nature, instead of being merely the backdrop against which the affairs of humans are played out, is recognized as playing an active role in historical processes.”29 In assessing this relationship, the incorporation of observations on the dynamics of natural ecosystems in time, on the development of the socioeconomic realm and technology, on environmental policy and planning as well as on changing interpretations and beliefs is equally important for this thesis.30

Outline of the Thesis

AIMS AND SCOPE

Existing scholarly research about the historical dimensions of waste management in China has hence been limited to both rather general and relatively fragmented investigations about waste pollution and basic infrastructures of waste management in Chinese cities during the last 100 to 150 years (see the following section, “The State of the Field”). Previously presented studies have primarily had the function of giving first basic introductions to different aspects of the topic.

29 Mosley, Stephen, “Common Ground: Integrating Social and Environmental History,” 916. 30 Ibid. 10 Most of these studies frame waste problems exclusively in a public health and urban sanitation context, which is important but does not do justice to the fact that the topic is actually more complex than that. What is hitherto missing is a more differentiated approach to the historical Chinese relationship to urban waste that looks at the topic from different angles, integrates it with broader historical contexts and takes a closer look at its development over time. This thesis will expand on the public health context and provide depth by integrating it with other viewpoints on the topic and by engaging an appropriate scope of detail. The goal is to depict the development of Chinese urban societies to waste as an ambivalent process of practice- and knowledge-building that was subject to the influence of changing political systems and political ideologies over the course of the twentieth century. Finally, this thesis will also integrate historical waste problems in China into a broader discussion on the origins and dynamics of environmental problems in general. In addressing these goals, this thesis expands and diversifies the groundwork that previous publications have laid out. A first exploration of new themes and questions connected to the topic, the filling of existing knowledge gaps and the composition of a first comprehensive overview on topic-related problems is a substantial part of its scientific contribution. Its longue durée perspective serves to trace back especially bigger transformations and continuities over time, with the goal to connect the past to the present. Opting for thematic breadth over an in- depth single case analysis, this thesis does not look at specific historical events in isolation and will therefore, leave some more specific questions with regard to different time periods open. This thesis will not to be able to discuss the topic exhaustively in all possible detail; due to the fact that the topic is still so underexplored, this would require intensive joint research with other historians (or sociologists; anthropologists) of China or at least one major follow-up project to master the required workload. It will, however, explore the topic thoroughly to enable future studies to build on it.

Structural Outline and Methodology

Before presenting an outlook of the concrete contents of this thesis, the choice of the portrayed time periods and case studies needs to be explained in further detail. This thesis covers a time span of roughly one century from the early to the late

11 1900s. In fact, this is also the period that most previous studies on Chinese waste history fall into. The major reason for this is the combination of an acceleration of the urbanization process with the onset of industrialization that caused severe urban waste problems in China to first emerge during the late nineteenth century. Systematic, centralized interventions and larger municipal coping structures did not develop before the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at least not in the case studies examined in this thesis and previously by other authors. Beyond the chosen time scope, that is, from the 1990s to the present, the analysis would shift from history to contemporary history. Although the intensification of waste problems during the last three decades in China is significant, it can be understood as an exacerbation of problems that originate in earlier decades. It is the goal of this thesis to understand the historical mechanisms behind the long-term formation of these problems, not to trace their entire continuous unfolding until the present day. As the analysis will show, the core period of problem formation lies roughly between the 1920s and 1980s. Concerning the broader context of present-day environmental problems in China, this thesis argues that the relationship with and the knowledge about waste as well as the specific practices and infrastructures to tackle waste problems that formed throughout the twentieth century are important factors to the long-term persistence of waste problems. It also argues that China’s multiple changes of government during the twentieth century—from the Late Qing to the Chinese Republic, from the Republic to Mao’s People’s Republic, and from the Mao era to the post-communist People’s Republic—and adjacent changes in the socio-cultural and economic framing of waste have contributed to an ambivalent relationship with waste in the long run. While waste was treated mostly as a pollutant during the Late Qing and Republican eras, the Mao era stressed its potentials as raw material in the socialist recycling economy. In the informal sector, an understanding of waste materials as resources even existed throughout and beyond these time periods. During the post-Mao Reform Era, the official relationship to waste changed again as deregulated growth and consumption became influential factors. This thesis understands these periods as the direct ‘formation phase’ for the present-day Chinese relationship to waste. Investigating these periods in succession is important to understand key processes of knowledge transmission, practices, and legal frameworks from one period to the next as well the ‘inheritance’ of unsolved

12 problems. While it is thinkable in principle that older patterns of a relationship to waste could also play in or that even new problems have emerged very recently, the patterns developed during the twentieth century are so dominant that they should be addressed first. A coherent presentation of these processes is challenged by China’s size and regional variety. In the context of a topic as unexplored as historical waste treatment, a single study like this cannot possibly claim to want to make extensive statements about China as a whole. Of course, the goal is to produce generalizable results, but in order to stay within the realistic frame of a doctoral project, this study had to be narrowed down to three case studies. Case studies are important for the following reason: waste is, in most cases, a place-bound problem that causes immediate effects in the location it is produced. These effects often have to be dealt with within a limited geographical radius. Depending on the specific conditions of that geographical radius, which may include the local climate, physical topography, population density, distribution of industries, land use, influence of other environmental risks etc., local societies may develop very different problems in their relation with waste, and are likely to react to them with their very own waste treatment practices. This thesis argues that although waste pollution is now a common and a global problem, historically it was always a local problem first. It is therefore appropriate to address it from a local viewpoint first and compare different local waste histories in a second step. The advantage of a comparison of three case studies—as opposed to an analysis of one, two, or more than three case studies lies in a good balance between depth and comparability. Three cases allow for more variety in the results than two but the number of cases is still limited enough to investigate each single case thoroughly, thus avoiding superficiality in the comparison.

CASE STUDIES Of course, the choice of specific case studies—in this case, the cities Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu—is crucial to enable an expressive comparison. As has been mentioned previously, waste problems usually first emerge as an urban phenomenon in cities with high population densities; rural areas and small cities are therefore unlikely to deliver comparable results for the time period examined. As concerns the choice of cities, they cannot be too similar as this could create the false impression of generalizable results where only a lot of already matching

13 characteristics have been compared. On the other hand, they cannot be too different, either as this could weaken the comparison as a whole. All three cities have been selected for the roles they played historically but also for their present- day significance, as this study always has the implications of historical events for China’s present-day relationship with the environment in mind. Another important criterion is each city’s historical exposure to international, specifically ‘Western’ influence. The globally dominant technological and organizational waste management solutions of the last 150 years were all first developed in the Global North; colonialist structures have played an important role in their distribution. While Chinese cities certainly had their own alternative technological solutions—chapters 2 and 3 will provide different examples—, the relevant ‘hard technologies’ that make large urban waste accumulations more easily manageable and also environmentally safer, such as controlled tipping or incineration,31 were adapted from Western models when first introduced to China. Although a Japanese influence on late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese waste management approaches is also thinkable, to the strong impression of the author, it does not seem to have been significant during the core period investigated. Whether or not the exposure to ‘Western’ waste management approaches historically led to better control over waste problems or whether it caused additional problems and conflicts in the three cities examined will have to be clarified in the following chapters. The comparison featured in this thesis is centered around the city of Shanghai for four reasons: 1) with its opening as a treaty port, Shanghai quickly grew to become China’s most densely populated city. As has already been discussed, high population density is among the most prominent reasons for an overproduction of waste and resulting pollution. 2) As China’s largest treaty port between 1843 and 1943, Shanghai was a major hub for East–West encounters. Its administrative division into the British-American-Japanese dominated International Settlement, the French Concession and the Chinese Walled City and outer Chinese districts— referred to as Huajie 华界 (“Chinese Realm”) by their Chinese administrators— enabled a rich influx of ideas, concepts of ‘modernism’ according to new global standards, and technology but also caused conflict where this influx was

31 See chapter 3 for a close-up look on waste management technologies and the clarification of technical terms. 14 perceived as intrusive and imperialist. This thesis presumes that ‘Western’ influence on local waste management was especially pronounced in Shanghai and even more so in Hong Kong, making both cities a gateway for imported waste management approaches and technology. 3) As China’ most developed city of the first half of the twentieth century (and today), Shanghai used to have a strong role model character for other regions in China. If important breakthroughs in waste management were made in Shanghai, whether or not they were directly or indirectly influenced by ‘Western’ impulses, they were likely to have been received nationwide. 4) Shanghai already is the probably best-researched city in China, which facilitates the embedding of waste treatment into already richly available information on the development of its politics, urban infrastructure, local economy, culture, societal organization and social life. By adding waste to the picture, existing views on historical living conditions and environmental quality in historical Shanghai can be corrected and enriched. In the present study, early-to-mid twentieth century Shanghai is closely compared with Hong Kong. This choice of case study needs to be thoroughly explained. The most fundamental overriding question is whether or not Hong Kong is ‘China’: should it be part of this comparison in the first place? As John Carroll argues, its colonial heritage from 1843 to 1997 and its ties with both the British Empire and the Chinese mainland have made it a “special place” that formed a unique Hong Kong identity—neither part of a Chinese nor a British national identity—early on in Hong Kong’s history as a colony.32 Although Carroll rightfully describes the most popularized depiction of Hong Kong as a ‘place of East-West encounter’ as an overemphasized “cliché”,33 the high local influence of colonialism and urban infrastructures oriented at European standards remain important with regard to waste management. Carroll also points out that colonial Hong Kong’s role as a hub for Chinese nation building contributed just as much to the formation of an own sense of place identity and confidence among the Hong Kong elites as it strengthened the political ties between Late Qing and Republican China and Hong Kong.34 Still, these ties are expressive of Hong Kong’s status as a model and space of orientation towards ‘modernity’ in the eyes of Mainland elites, which it has in common with treaty port Shanghai. Hong Kong

32 Carroll, John M., “Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place.” 33 Ibid., 518. 34 Ibid., 519. 15 held this status for the entire jindai era and again after Mao Zedong’s death. Of course, the Revolutionary period—when Hong Kong, soaring to become an ultra- liberalist industrial and financial center of the world, became the concept of an enemy from the viewpoint of the Mainland’s political ideology—was an exception to this pattern. Within this comparison, colonial Hong Kong and semi-colonial Shanghai are investigated for features in their waste management systems that are specifically influenced by ‘Western’ approaches, and for the mechanisms under which these systems functioned in and interacted with their Chinese environments. This direct comparability was certainly not a historical constant: it was interrupted by the political and economic ‘divergence’ between the two cities that developed after 1949. As of the end of British hegemony in 1997, however, there has, again, been a formal process of ‘reintegration of Hong Kong into the Mainland’ in progress, which, of course, brings with it serious consequences for Hong Kong’s cultural and political identity and integrity. While the Mainland and Hong Kong are fundamentally divided as societies, from its present-day legal status Hong Kong is a part of China. The euphemistically called “One Country, Two Systems” agreement has a deadline: although Hong Kong will formally stay autonomous until 2047, its waste problems, currently still dealt with locally, will ultimately become a cross-regional concern. With the previously cited statement in mind that environmental challenges do not stop at political borders, and with the present and future in view, it is appropriate to frame Hong Kong’s waste history as part of a long-term, ‘greater Chinese’ perspective on local relationships with waste. The assumption that Hong Kong’s waste management will be of future concern is not unfounded: at present, Hong Kong is already at the verge of a fundamental waste crisis and might be unable to manage its own waste independently within less than a decade from now.35 Depending on the availability of alternative solutions by the late 2020s, the question remains whether Hong Kong might have to make waste relief deals with the Mainland, and whether such deals might come only in return

35 Explanations for the emergence of the Hong Kong waste crisis as well as a discussion of future options to avoid larger environmental complications and social conflict over waste management are given in the author’s recently published co-authored article: Fabian, N. and Lou, L.I.T. “The Struggle for Sustainable Waste Management in Hong Kong: 1950s–2010s.” Some results concerning the history of landfilling and land reclamation in Hong Kong, as featured in this article, are based on the analysis presented in chapters 3.1 and 3.2.3 of this thesis. They have been published prior to the submission of this thesis upon kind permission by the Promotionsausschuss, Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum. 16 for political concessions. Beyond this greater frame, however, the Hong Kong case study is also unique enough to tell its very own story. While the other two case studies need Hong Kong as a reference, the Hong Kong case study could, in principle be investigated all on its own. The function of the third case study is to provide examples for the historical development of urban waste management in the setting of a Chinese city that was not exposed to direct colonial influence from the ‘West’. The third case study should help verify central results from the comparison of the other two case studies and generalize them for a broader Chinese context a broader but also show alternative historical examples that are less closely related to foreign rule and knowledge imports. An investigation of the translation of concepts and structures that were either directly imported or developed within a setting of intercultural, globalized dialogue in coastal cities into an inland capital setting far away from the coast may give meaningful insights into the adaptability of these concepts and structures into local contexts and practices that were otherwise relatively free of ‘Western’ influence. The city chosen as the third case study should therefore have some general parameters in common with the two coastal examples but it should also show significant differences in topic-related historical developments. For a variety of reasons that shall be explained in the following, the choice has fallen on Chengdu. Theoretically, numerous cities would have been worth considering as a non-coastal counterexample for Shanghai and Hong Kong. Beijing, of course, was on the shortlist, however, it is yet another example of a very densely populated city that also concentrated a lot of political and economic power—it is therefore not representative enough for Chinese inland cities. The question why Chongqing, Chengdu’s closest neighbor and an historically even more dynamic up-and coming inland city, has been ruled out can be easily answered: due to its temporary status as a treaty port (1891–1943), seat of national government (1937– 1945), and industrial hub (as of 1963), it shares too many similarities with the eastern metropolises and would probably have reduced the variety of results. Situated in close proximity to the Tibetan border and even without direct access to the Yangzi River like its neighbor Chongqing, early to mid-twentieth century Chengdu was physically very remote from the globalizing east coast. Yet, it looks back on a century of intellectual, political, and economic orientation towards coastal development, and its own development has been powerful: since the

17 1990s, it has been among China’s most dynamic up-and-coming inland metropolises. 36 Despite its peripheral location, twentieth-century Chengdu compares well to coastal metropolises for three main reasons: originally, its position as the administrative center of the agriculturally very productive Sichuan province, its function as one of imperial China’s westernmost gates for important trade routes and its general political strength gave it a high status among provincial capitals and the self-confidence of a regional role model for development. Second, despite or rather because of the spatial distance, Late Qing Chengdu’s political and economic elites were already strongly oriented towards the East Coast and proactively kept up to date to draw inspiration for urban development from China’s most dynamic metropolises.37 The third reason that encourages a comparison in the present context is the local climate: Shanghai, Hong Kong and Chengdu all have mild, humid climates with hot summers and high annual rainfall. Although their local microclimates are far from identical, common factors important for waste management, such as high moisture content of the local waste due to weather exposure, temperatures significantly above zero for most of the year and summer heat waves make the climatic conditions for waste management in these three cities relatively similar. For comparison, the arid, colder climates of northern China would have theoretically allowed for waste accumulations to freeze over the winter and dry out quickly during the summer, thus creating less ideal conditions for bacterial growth—both in the context of wanted fermentation and unwanted contamination—than in southern China. Southern China was also agriculturally productive almost all year round, requiring a constant supply of fertilizer (partly derived from waste accumulations, see chapter 2.2.), while northern China was seasonally productive and naturally had less demand for winter waste accumulations.38 Thus, the comparison of a northern peripheral city to Shanghai and Hong Kong might bring about more ambivalent, less generalizable results. Consequently, the choice of these three case studies overs others makes the entire study more representative of southern than of northern China, which the author is consciously taking into account.

36 Schneider, Annemarie et al., “Urban Growth in Chengdu, Western China: Application of Remote Sensing to Assess Planning and Policy Outcomes.” 37 Cf. Stapleton, Kristin, Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937, 13. 38 Cf. Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China,” 54–55. 18 METHODOLOGY

Methodologically, the major results of this thesis are derived from the critical analysis of primary sources. For the present analysis, a recombination of findings from documents held at municipal archives and from historical local newspapers is used to explore the historical dimensions of waste pollution, the perception of waste as a pollutant or resource, the goals and organization of waste management and the transfer of experience and knowledge from one historical period to the next. Two extended research periods have majorly contributed to the collection of data from primary materials: from March to July 2016, the author conducted research at the Department of History, The University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Public Records Office. She spent another six months of research from September 2017 to February 2018 at the Department of History, East China Normal University (Lishi xuexi 历史学系, Huadong shifan daxue 华东师范大学) in Shanghai and the Shanghai Municipal Archives (Shanghai shi dang’anguan 上海市档案馆) as well as at the Faculty for History and Culture at Sichuan University (Lishi wenhua xueyuan 历史文化学院, Sichuan daxue 四川大学) the Chengdu Municipal Archives (Chengdushi dang’anguan 成都市档案馆), the Sichuan Provincial Archives (Sichuan sheng dang’anguan 四川省), and the Chengdu City Library (Chengdu tushuguan 成都图书馆). Through the support of the host universities and Ruhr-Universität Bochum’s subscription to the CrossAsia database platform, hosted by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, she has also had the possibility to search extensively in historical newspaper databases as well as get access to hardcopies and microfilm copies of historical newspapers. In addition, historical publications containing instructions and reflections on waste treatment and recycling from the Republican and Revolutionary periods have been consulted to enrich the variety of source materials. As most aspects of historical waste management in all three cities have hitherto remained unexamined, a first comprehensive assessment of a broad basis of comparable sources is an important component of the thesis’ rendered performance. The initial explorative phase has proved that the perspective of municipal governments and the local press generates the highest density of comparable results. Many questions addressed in this thesis revolve around organizational patterns, legal backgrounds, and unsolved or perpetuated problems

19 of waste management, all of which are addressed with a sufficiently high frequency in municipal records and local newspapers. Certainly, this choice of sources also has problematic aspects and will leave certain questions unanswered. First of all, the approach is very inductive and constructivist. Information derived from archival documents and newspapers is always selective and never complete; small bits of information, sometimes explicit, sometimes ‘read between the lines’, are recombined and integrated into already explored historical contexts and are gradually developed into a narrative that is highly dependent on the researcher’s own interpretation. Of course, assumptions can be supported convincingly through the recombination of a sufficient amount of information from different sources; however, statements made in this way represent trends and tendencies rather than absolute truths. A second limitation lies in a certain one- dimensionality of the chosen sources: observations made by both municipal government representatives and newspaper journalists are rarely neutral but, instead, often follow a specific agenda or political ideology (or both). In addition, they are likely to portray mainly elitist perceptions and opinions while hardly providing insights into the average population’s homes, minds, and conversations on the topic. Although this thesis attempts at integrating both official and informal perspectives as much as possible, the fact that this study’s major purpose is groundwork research makes it more of an organizational than a ‘people’s history’ of urban waste treatment in twentieth-century China. Future studies should address such topical frames through oral history, popular literature analysis or anthropological approaches, but such studies will also depend on the groundwork presented in this thesis.

STRUCTURE This thesis is divided into two parts, each containing two chapters that cover different thematic blocks. The analysis unfolds by following the three case studies consecutively through time in an integrative investigation of each thematic block. For this reason, the thesis does not reconstruct the historical events along one single timeline but consecutively readdresses the different time periods (mainly, Late Qing to post-Mao Reform period) according to their representation in the thematic blocks. Although this method forces the reader to move back and forth in time from chapter to chapter, it has crucial advantages over a separate analysis of each individual local case study: by comparing the case studies directly in the

20 context of the different thematic blocks, it is possible to immediately lay the focus on larger patterns, cross-regional similarities and structural transfer processes that developed over time, instead of deducting these patters only in a second step after each case study has been individually treated. To add structure, the single case studies are often discussed in their own sections but the overarching analysis and always transgresses these sections and binds them together within the same chapter or subchapter. Part I, “Institutional, Legal and Organizational Frameworks of Waste Management”, provides fundamental background information on historical waste management structures in the three cities. It traces back the emergence of urban waste as a pollutant and investigates the systemic preconditions for as well as the practical execution of twentieth-century waste management. This Part connects urban waste management with the development of the Chinese public health sector and municipal public administration, looking especially at the institutional, legal, and organizational foundations of waste management in all three cities with regard to their general efficiency and compatibility with the natural environment. In this context, the Chapter 1, “Waste Administration: A Local or a National Problem?” looks especially at the historical processes of institution-building, sanitary lawmaking, and administrative organization within which waste was first framed as an urban hygienic problem that required pollution control. Special attention is paid to the ways in which guidelines formed at central government level played out in the specific local context of the three case studies. An especially crucial aspect in this is the historical process of legal development; in this context, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Chengdu are compared for orientation towards one another with regard to legal standards for effective waste management as well as for their respective capabilities to locally establish a reliable set of such standards. As the comparison will show, the degree of centralization in lawmaking plays an important role for the functionality of new laws, i.e., their supportive effect on certain waste management practices. It will also show how certain priorities in historical lawmaking have affected the environmentally protective capacities of new laws. Chapter 2, “Waste Production, Waste Collection and Sanitary Education”, looks at the practical implementation of the administrative and legal frameworks. Here, special focus is placed on the ways in which those frameworks—especially

21 where they were strongly influenced by ‘Western’ standards of cleanliness and efficient coordination—were applicable to or met the needs of the specific local conditions. Besides identifying dichotomies in the application process, this chapter also investigates examples of strongly integrative dynamics, especially the conjunction of municipal waste collection and rural fertilizer trade networks, which have in the past been primarily identified with night soil trade but less with urban household waste. For the first time, this chapter also presents a statistical overview on waste production in all three cities that supports statements on urban pollution with concrete figures and clearly defines waste accumulation as a major environmental problem since the beginning of the twentieth century. Finally, this chapter dedicates an in-depth analysis to education on waste pollution, with a special focus on political campaigns. In this context, campaigns held during the Republican period, to name especially the New Life movement (Xin shenghuo yundong 新生活运动), are framed as important milestones for the establishment of standards and knowledge that the People’s Republic was able to profit from and build on. The Republican period is often judged critically for the many problems concerning national stability, democratic development, civil society building, or public administration that remained unsolved, and this chapter also addresses various problems of environmental management that have been transmitted. However, it should not go unmentioned that the People’s Republic profited tremendously from the Republican period’s achievements in urban sanitation and waste control—these achievements facilitated the People’s Republic’s transition into circular waste management. At this point, the waste management systems on the Mainland and in Hong Kong become contrastive: this chapter also follows Hong Kong’s mid- to late-twentieth century transition into a state of tension where space for people begins to compete with space for waste disposal. Part II of this thesis, “Waste Pollution and Notions of Sustainability”, sets a stronger focus on the environmental dimensions of waste management as well as on different structures and mechanisms that led to or alleviated waste pollution. Chapter 3, “Fighting and Creating Pollution with Technology: Historical Explanations for Landfill Dependence” looks into the historical introduction and integration of different waste management technologies and the way in which choices for or against different types of technology created locally specific

22 environmental problems. Understanding the historical development of the local technological status quo is crucial as it is, besides organization, a core pillar to the management of mass waste production, which all three cities experienced by the end of the twentieth century. In all three cities, repeated decisions against a stronger industrialization of waste management (represented, for example, by the introduction of incineration technology), created dependencies on less ‘advanced’ technologies, especially primitive forms of landfilling. These dependencies, again, caused unfavorable effects on the environment that became harder to control the more the local waste production accelerated and the more the concentration of industrial wastes in the local waste mix rose. While technology (especially ‘hard technology’, which, in this case, refers to large, industrialized units that process mass wastes) is unlikely to entirely solve waste problems without the key patterns of waste production changing, it is indispensible for the alleviation of pressure on the environment. The incomplete development of such technologies in all three cities, which this chapter reconstructs, serves as a partial explanation why waste pollution gradually got out of hand in all three cities during the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, chapter 4, “Turning Waste Into Treasures: Twentieth-century Circular Economies” stresses that not all local approaches to waste management were intrinsically disadvantageous for the environment. While the previous chapters focus mostly on legal, political, and organizational structures that either caused waste pollution or remained unable to overcome them, this chapter goes back to this thesis’ initial question about the definition of waste: historical contexts in which waste was framed as a resource instead of as a pollutant or as useless residues led not only to an entirely different outlook on waste management organization in the cities examined but also to discourses on frugality which, although they were historically not labeled as such, can be seen as early forms of sustainability thinking. National recycling as it was practiced in the People’s Republic under Mao Zedong is a prominent example for a radical turn in the social construction of waste. Of course, the core idea of sustainable resource circulation was compromised by adverse mechanisms of the planned economy and a denial of the fact that all wastes cannot be recycled, which resulted in failure to properly dispose of environmentally harmful fallouts. But frugality and recycling discourses even have a longer tradition in urban China: following Frank

23 Dikötter’s and Joshua Goldstein’s already mentioned discoveries about historical informal recycling structures, this chapter also deepens the exploration of Late Qing and Republican Recycling trades. It also investigates how recycling practices and knowledge built during those periods were later integrated into national recycling, and in which sense they even transcended the socialist phase, prevailing as living cultural heritage. While chapters 1 to 3 focus on governance structures, practices, and technologies, this chapter concentrates on people; it traces back real-life motivations to recycle, the social status of recyclers, and how they interacted with their local urban societies and the local political system throughout the twentieth century. It thus also takes the discussion back to the fact that waste management is a phenomenon which, in principle, engages an entire society: as much as governance matters, so does the individual perception of, access to knowledge about, and interaction with waste make a difference for a dynamic relationship with waste. Ultimately, both are prerequisite for the urban society’s capacities to relieve waste pressure.

24 Insights from Studying Chinese Waste History: The State of the Field

As sociologist Reiner Keller puts it in his comparative discourse analysis of twentieth-century German and French debates on national and regional waste treatment regulations, waste production, removal or utilization is nothing originally “modern”.39 If that is the case, then there is work to do for historians— especially historians of China. To date, only very limited scholarly research on the historical dimensions of waste treatment in China has been presented. Given the previously described significance of the topic for a better understanding of present-day waste problems in China, such a huge research gap strikes as surprising. Any study that contributes to this understanding is therefore timely and much needed. Certainly, it has to be pointed out that even in general, the history of waste treatment is not a topic that has been discussed within historical research at great length. The field is very small—it exists, however, it is dominated by studies on the Western European and Northern American context. While these studies identify a lot of common aspects between different ‘Western’ societies’ historical relationship to waste, they do not make statements or comparisons beyond these societies. This ‘Western-centric’ approach to waste history is a problem: it could generate the false impression that the ‘Western’ relationship with waste were generalizable on a global scale as it blends out a large part of all other global societies, the historical relationship of which to waste could potentially have been very different. At least in the English-speaking world of historical science, an East Asian, and especially a Chinese perspective on waste is almost entirely missing. As will be demonstrated in the following discussion of the existing literature, there exist a variety of publications by both Chinese and non-Chinese authors that form what we might consider a basis of Chinese waste history. Yet, due to the extremely limited number of contributions, there still is too little of an active academic discussion on this topic to call it a field yet. This dissertation aims at filling important gaps and pave the way for future, more in-depth research and discussion. Until the field is further developed, orientation and inspiration

39 Keller, Reiner, Müll – die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion des Wertvollen: Die öffentliche Diskussion über Abfall in Deutschland und Frankreich, 73. 25 concerning relevant questions and problems to pursue and to discuss can be drawn from already existing case studies on the ‘Western’ context. Certainly, the intention should not be to simply copy their research questions, however they have provided important reference points for previous studies on the history of waste in China and, to a limited extent, do so also for the present thesis as they address important problems around waste and waste problems that have to be investigated also for the Chinese case. After a brief introduction to some theoretical reflections on waste, the following sections will therefore set this referential frame by giving an overview on the most impactful ‘Western’-centered publications on waste history first, followed by a discussion of the state of research related to the Chinese case.

“Waste” as A Social Construction The systematic investigation of any waste problem needs to start with a definition of what waste actually is in the observed context and what makes it become problematic. The fact that waste exists in a certain location at a given time does not automatically have to cause concerns; one could simply acknowledge that it is there without making further judgments. Seeing waste as a problem, on the other hand, is the result of a process of identification, which, again, is subject to changing patterns of perception. As environmental historian Martin V. Melosi, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the field of global waste history, puts it: “A refuse problem must be understood by those affected by it to have negative effects on human life. The problem may be seen at first as merely a nuisance or annoyance, and only later as a health hazard or part of a broader environmental crisis.”40 But if certain perceived properties of waste (such as, for example, ‘annoying’ or ‘harmful’) are ascribed through socially constructed perception, then so must the definition of waste itself be socially constructed. What is it that we call “waste”? The most common, radically descriptive definition, ‘waste is something discarded by someone’, might suffice where the relationship with it is a merely practical one, but such a definition tells us nothing about the nature of waste and even less about what brings it into existence. Therefore, more complex scientific approaches interpret waste as a category of culturally and socially determined value construction that helps classify objects on a scale from ‘useless’ to

40 Melosi, Martin V., Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1. 26 ‘valuable’. This act of ascription is an intriguing topic for cultural studies and social sciences, as it implies processes and transformations of value construction that end with a loss of value. To date anthropological studies have presented the most elaborate working definitions, starting with Mary Douglas’s widely known concept of “dirt” (or waste) as “matter out of place”.41 Introducing waste as something that possesses a dynamic (non-static) status and can therefore undergo changes of status, including a transition ‘back into place’, Douglas’s concept opens up a new perspective but tells us too little about the a society’s relationship with waste. Anthropologists picking up on the topic after her have attempted to fill this gap: Sonja Windmüller, for example, focuses on the social function of the act of value ascription in her theoretical framework to waste in Die Kehrseite der Dinge (“The Flip Side of Things”). Acts of value ascription help structure our material world and facilitate our identification with it; items regarded as worthless also serve to identify what is valuable. Thus, they form indicators of a given world view that provides orientation in the world around ourselves. 42 Windmüller’s observation builds on the first explorative attempt to capture waste in a comprehensive theory, presented by anthropologist Michael Thompson’s in Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value, where he states that objects form an element in our perception of the physical and social environment, our world view. […] In our culture objects are assigned to one or other of two overt categories which I label ‘transient’ and ‘durable’. Objects in the transient category decrease in value over time and have finite life-spans. Objects in the durable category increase in value over time and have (ideally) infinite life-spans.43

According to Thompson, waste is what remains when objects from the transient category reach the end of their finite life spans. Once they have crossed the line, value ascription is no longer possible. Yet, value construction is fluid and flexible; in principle, people can change their minds and creatively move objects from one category to the other. Each ascribed category will influence their relationship with the same objects and their behavior towards them in different ways. However, value ascription does not happen independently in most cases. Rather, it depends from broader social contexts, especially the social status of the individual that

41 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger. 42 Windmüller, Sonja, Die Kehrseite der Dinge: Müll, Abfall, Wegwerfen als kulturwissenschaftliches Problem, 30, 32. 43 Thompson, Michael, Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value, 7. 27 makes a categorization or chooses which items to surround itself with.44 High social status equals a higher freedom of access to items from any category. Individuals with a high social status tend to have an affinity for objects from the “durable” category and “transient” objects that boast a long life span. But as the existing social order determines whether and to what extent differential access is provided, individuals with lower status may be left primarily with access to items from the “transient” category or even only with items that have a relatively short life span.45 While the terms “durability” and “transience” can refer to physical function and properties, they imply the ideational value of an object just as much. The total value of an object may be either dominantly physical, composed of physical function plus ideational value, or even solely ideational (such as sentimental items). Whatever the specific value combination, the more an item is already perceived as ‘durable’ the more likely it is to gain even more value.46 Thompson finds that those holding societal power not only have the freedom to surround themselves with durable objects but also the ability to actively classify certain objects as durable (value-gaining), and then supply themselves majorly with those objects, leaving the transient (value-losing) objects for others. The waste category, finally, is built up of all objects that fail in the value-ascription process. But even an ascribed “point of zero value” is not static: there may still be a possibility for those objects to be rediscovered and ‘upcycled’ into the two other categories.47 This idea is especially important with regard to contemporary forms of waste that are ‘durable’ in their own way (as waste), the most prominent example being microplastics. As they break down indefinitely after disposal and are harmful beyond human control, the danger they represent can only be tackled as long as such wastes are salvaged while they can still be reintegrated into the ‘transient’ category, which is the main incentive of present-day circular economy approaches. According to Windmüller’s investigation of early twentieth-century waste treatment in Germany, not only do waste studies teach a lot about material culture but they can also, reversely, contribute to our understanding of social dynamics and different life realities within a given society. Waste production, its

44 Ibid., 7. 45 Ibid., 8. 46 In turn, the more ‘durable’ a type of waste (such as plastic that is breaking down) has become, the less likely it is to ever be re-salvageable into a category of value. 47 Ibid., 8–9. 28 composition and treatment depend on specific living environments, lifestyle habits, standards of cleanliness, the local distribution of wealth, local authorities’ degree of control over societal and environmental processes or the degree of efficacy when they organize these processes. Studying these factors in combination and in historical perspective allows for conclusions about long-term consumers’ preferences, material preferences, and throwaway habits as a function of concrete living conditions, mentalities, and socio-economic dynamics under which they have been generated.48 Thus, the study of waste tells much more than just a story about a society’s relationship to objects. The two main points to take away from these theoretical assumptions are 1) the fluidity of waste as a construction (nothing is ‘waste’ by determination); and 2) the rootedness of a society’s relationship to waste in long-term cultural practice and its likeliness to undergo transformation over time. This second point contains another important aspect: most likely, the strong ties of waste treatment to social order and cultural specifics are also rooted deeply in specific regions or locations. Although it is necessary to frame waste as a global problem, the analysis of any societal relationship with waste will have to take local characteristics into account—and so will any possible future solutions to waste problems. Transferred to a study of historical waste management in China, not only is it important to understand what is specific about the Chinese relationship to waste in the context of its social, political, and cultural history but also to acknowledge China’s size, which must lead us to expect a variety of different relationships to waste in different regions and localities. An in-depth comparison of such local differences will therefore play an important role in the case studies examined in this thesis.

Waste Problems Viewed through A Historical Lens

While the theoretical approaches introduced above explain how waste is socially constructed and what the construction process can teach about a society, they don’t offer a satisfying explanation for what brings humanity to produce more waste than it can handle. Waste has been studied from the viewpoints of various academic fields: it touches the interests of biologists, engineers, chemists, geographers and city planners, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists,

48 Windmüller, Die Kehrseite der Dinge, 201–204. 29 and historians, which makes it an excellent subject for interdisciplinary research. Despite the very different methodologies and research questions that these disciplines follow, a common question that is of potential interest to all of them is: do waste and waste pollution have to be a ‘given’? From a historical perspective, we can say for sure that waste has influenced human life in various places around the globe for centuries, if not millennia: waste accumulation and problems to manage it have been proven already for antique metropolises in Mesopotamia or Ancient Rome and Greece.49 Archaeological findings, most notably Rathje and Murphy’s comprehensive study Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage, suggest that the first garbage crises even go back to the emergence of the sedentary lifestyle. Throughout most of the history of human existence before sedentariness, garbage was most likely just “left where it fell”, which was probably not a problem in a world where only natural materials were used and people followed a nomad lifestyle. With the onset of the sedentary lifestyle, however, people and their waste were determined to coexist in the same locations.50 Urbanization took waste accumulation to the next level—lifestyles of excess, chemical wastes from the handicraft industries, and pollution with excrements were all linked to thriving urban economies, high population density and restricted living space already before the modern era. These common developments have been thoroughly discussed—at least for some societies located in the Global North—in survey studies such as Cathérine de Silguy’s Histoire de l’homme et leurs ordures or Susan Strasser’s well-received Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash.51 Pre- industrial societies, including city societies, are often considered to have been pure ‘recycling societies’ where production was oriented towards ‘realistic’ demand and long-term usage, and resource circulation. Under this assumption, excess waste production in pre-modern times seems to be a contradictory phenomenon. However, the abovementioned studies as well as Timothy Cooper’s important article “Recycling Modernity: Waste and Environmental History” prove it wrong: in reality, the speed of urban waste accumulation exceeded the local population’s daily needs for recyclables.52 As these studies importantly point out, waste pollution was almost exclusively an urban phenomenon until the beginning

49 Cf. the comprehensive overview in Hösel, Gottfried, Unser Abfall aller Zeiten, 1–36. 50 Cf. Rathje, William and Murphy, Cullen. Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage, 32–33. 51 Silguy, Cathérine de, Histoire des hommes et de leurs ordures du moyen âge à nos jours; Strasser, Susan, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. 52 Ibid. See also Cooper, Timothy, “Recycling Modernity—Waste and Environmental History.” 30 of mass consumption during the first half of the twentieth century. Due to a dominance of scarcity in the countryside, rural areas were much less affected. In his aforementioned monograph Garbage in the Cities: Refuse Reform and the Environment, Martin V. Melosi labels population density as the most prominent cause for historical waste pollution, whereas agrarian societies could rely on multiple opportunities of re-purposing and, especially, space for disposal.53 The most recent study to have vividly portrayed the growing waste loads and resulting calamities of a modern European metropolis in historical perspective is Lee Jackson’s Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, which clearly points out the relationship between waste pollution and overpopulation.54 Despite the indisputably significant long-term historical dimension of urban waste problems, there is no doubt that waste pollution—especially in its recent global dimensions—has reached proportions and impacts of a severity never experienced at any given time before the twentieth century. Of course, the main driver is consumerism. As sociologist Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi importantly addresses in her groundwork study Waste and Consumption: Capitalism, the Environment, and the Life of Things, the perceived “right to consume” has generated a perceived “right to produce waste”.55 As she argues, once this perception has gained momentum, waste production and management becomes an integral component of the capitalist logic of economic feasibility. Complex technological solutions and the invention of recycling industries are examples of the attempt to rationalize waste accumulation and integrate it into the growth- oriented economy. In this setting, efficient waste management can potentially contribute to the alleviation of environmental risks but it can also provide encouragement to consume more, because all consequences seem to be taken care of.56 At this point, the relationship with waste must be understood as deeply psychological. This aspect is also stressed by anthropologist Mikael Drackner in his article “What Is Waste? To Whom?”. He argues that strategies of the human psyche to engage emotion and “cultural explanations” in order to validate specific behaviors in the mind play a great role in our legitimization of waste production

53 Melosi, Garbage in the Cities, 1. 54 Jackson, Lee, Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth. 55 Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta, Waste and Consumption: Capitalism, the Environment, and the Life of Things, 3–4. 56 Ibid. 47–48. For the relationship between waste and technological progress, see also Faßler, Manfred, Abfall, Moderne, Gegenwart: Beiträge zum evolutionären Eigenrecht der Gegenwart, 194. 31 to ourselves. These strategies transform or relationship with consumption, causing us to constantly redefine and justify to ourselves what our “basic needs” are and why we are entitled to fulfill them even at the cost of others or the environment. Drackner also integrates waste problems into the Beckian risk scenario, pointing out our widespread, contradictory tendency to assume that potential risks might possibly affect others but probably not ourselves. As he explains, this assumption causes individuals to detach themselves and their own actions from the causal chains that produce risks and regard waste as “someone else’s problem”, be it society in general, the authorities, the educational system, or the experts and workers that are already in charge of waste management. Rarely are waste problems seen as the result of one’s very own, individual consumption behavior.57 While Falasca-Zamponi confirms that consumerism and capitalism strive in coexistence, she importantly points out that capitalism itself is not the initial reason for our urge to consume, nor is consumption an indispensible prerequisite for capitalism.58 Accordingly, a capitalist economy without waste problems is thinkable at least in principle. Yet, so far capitalism has not come up with a working solution. Even the latest and most promising vision for a cross-regional or even global solution, the circular economy, was originally not invented in a capitalist context—it was first developed in the socialist countries of the Eastern bloc. The most comprehensive study to date in English language that discusses the sustainability potential of the socialist circular economy59 has been presented by Zsuzsa Gille in her monograph From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary.60 As she explains, the Marxist viewpoint conceptualizes waste as ‘unfavorable byproducts’ of the mechanisms of capitalism. In an ideal economy, such byproducts could be avoided. The socialist economy thus redefines “waste” as “resources”, thereby effectively abolishing the category of “waste” (meaning: objects devalued beyond recovery) altogether. In socialist Hungary, the word “waste” still existed but it was no longer defined as a “residue” that had fallen out of the value chain but as a

57 Drackner, Mikael, “What Is Waste? To Whom?—An Anthropological Perspective On Garbage,” 177–180. 58 Falasca-Zamponi, Waste and Consumption, 8. 59 As the author of this thesis lacks any knowledge of Russian, preexisting literature on socialist circular economies in the Russian-speaking World is excluded from this discussion. At the time of submission of this thesis, despite thorough research the author knows of no such academic study having been translated into or first been presented in English. 60 Gille, Zsuzsa, From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary. 32 means of production. 61 Of course, as Gille also explains, the fact that the definition changed did not prevent the industrial economy from producing unusable residues. Tragically, the denial that such residues accumulated despite the meticulous resource circulation plans led socialist Hungary into a waste crisis of its own kind: production units had to illegally discard the materials that could not be allocated according to the plan, as their inability to use or further distribute these materials would have been regarded as an inacceptable failure.62 Gille concludes that waste has its own dynamic, interacts with society and usually works against it regardless of the economic system that it is produced in. 63 But in her follow-up publication “Waste Utopias: Lessons from Socialist Europe for the Twenty-first Century”, she also adds that despite the false promise of full recyclability and the misbalance between demand and supply in the Hungarian socialist planned economy, the Marxist basic claim that waste should be reduced through recirculation is legitimate and “progressive” in the very sense of contemporary notions on the circular economy, even in a capitalist economic setup.64 With these historical developments in mind, the historical relationship of different societies of the Global North with waste management cannot be sweepingly reduced to the development of a purely rationalist, technology- centered approach aimed merely at the displacement of waste from the everyday. Not only the socialist recycling ideology shows that ‘bigger’ notions of waste as a resource existed, but as Timothy Cooper analyzes in “Challenging the ‘Refuse Revolution’: War, Waste and the Rediscovery of Recycling, 1900–50”, historical examples teach that structures of the ‘traditional recycling society’ are easily reactivated if material scarcity spreads and consumption is interrupted.65 The historical process of transmission of recycling knowledge and sustainability

61 Ibid., 9, 25. 62 Ibid., 32. German historians Christian Möller and Reinhold Reith have observed similar patterns of a circular economy and recycling ideology in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which, interestingly, co-existed with a relatively advanced technological setup for waste management. The combination of technology and national recycling has earned the GDR recognition for its efficiency in historical retrospective. Cf. Möller, Christian, “Der Traum vom ewigen Kreislauf: Abprodukte, Sekundärrohstoffe und Stoffkreisläufe im ‘Abfall-Regime’ der DDR,” 62; Reith, Reinhold, “Recycling – Stoffströme in der Geschichte,” 113–115. 63 Gille, From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History, 34. 64 Gille, Zsuzsa, “Waste Utopias: Lessons from Socialist Europe for the Twenty-first Century,” 39. 65 Cooper, Timothy, “Challenging the ‘Refuse Revolution’: War, Waste and the Rediscovery of Recycling, 1900–50,” 710–731. 33 practices in the informal sector has received less scholarly attention than topics such as the industrialization of waste management technology, waste problems, or injustice caused by unevenly distributed exposure to waste pollution, and future studies will hopefully further explore what historical recycling structures can teach for the present and future.

Waste in Chinese History

What all the publications discussed above have in in common is their ‘Western- centric’ perspective. Even assuming that many aspects of the society–waste relationship, especially those related to consumption, economic growth, and industrial productivity are generalizable for various societies around the globe, we learn from the theoretical basics that the development of each society’s relationship with waste is unique. If that is true, it would depend on a variety of locally and culturally specific perceptions which are rooted in history and need to be assessed in place-specific analyses. Unless one considers historical heritage, structures, and experience as insignificant for the formation of present-day perceptions and behaviors, these basics imply that even if the relationship with waste looks similar at the surface, two different societies will never share the exact same set of historical experiences and interpretations. Therefore, it is impossible to immediately look at the emergence of waste problems ‘in general’—they have to be investigated specifically for different local contexts first. Yet, certainly, the ultimate goal to develop new global solutions would still require to identify problems and perspectives that the different cases have in common and reintegrate them in a unifying approach in a second step. That said, there is a lot to be done for historians of the Global South. At present, most existing scholarly work on waste history focuses on Europe and Northern America, which leaves many questions about other parts of the world unanswered. In discussing the major questions these publications have raised and answers, this introduction does not intend to present them as a lens through which to investigate China’s historical relationship with waste. But as the field of East Asian waste history has yet to be developed, ‘Western-centric’ studies provide some orientation concerning relevant questions to address and problem fields to evaluate. They also play a pivotal role when it comes to international transfers of knowledge and technology. In the long run, the goal should be to work towards a

34 global comparability of waste histories, a central incentive of which would be to identify and discuss questions and problems that they have in common. On the other hand, the identification of key differences is no less important. It is therefore an important asset of this thesis to identify and discuss in which ways and to what extent the Chinese relationship to waste differed from the European and North- American context and to provide a basis for future comparisons beyond these societies, especially within East Asia.66 At the time this thesis is submitted, existing scholarly knowledge on waste treatment in Chinese history remains very fragmented. This thesis presents the first full-length comparative overview on Chinese waste history that not only covers more than one specific historical time period but also involves more than one local case study. In fact, few previous publications have the historical treatment of waste in China as their sole topic. The most dynamic scholarly discussions on the Chinese history of waste treatment revolve around investigations on night soil (‘human and animal waste’ or manure) in the context of China’s long-existing and almost ubiquitous distribution system of night soil as fertilizer. The most renowned publications on this topic to date, which point out not only the enormous scale of the night soil system but also its sophisticated organization and management in historical retrospective (with a focus on the Late Imperial and jindai periods), are Xue Yong’s “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’”; Donald Worster’s recent “The Good Muck”; and Cao Mu’s “The Public Lavatory of Tianjin”,67 with the former two publications focusing more on night soil distribution in the countryside and the latter going into details about the implications of excrement pollution and the organization of night soil collection in Chinese cities. Night soil, however, is a particular form of waste that is not representative of any other waste types, and

66 It should be pointed out that there already exist some groundwork contributions by Japanese scholars on the waste history of Japan, or at least Tōkyō (formerly Edo 江戸). Due to this author’s limited command of Japanese and familiarity with the Japanese historical context, these publications cannot be discussed in detail in this thesis but future research should definitely make their content and findings accessible to a wider international readership for the sake of future discussions on East Asian perspectives on waste. These publications include, for example, Inamura Mitsuo 稲村光郎, Gomi to Nihonjin: Eisei, kinken, risaikuru kara miru kindaishi ごみと日本人：衛生•勤倹•リサイクルからみる近代史; Iwabuchi Reiji 岩淵令治, “Edo no gomi shori chikō: ‘Risaikuru toshi’ ‘seiketsu toshi’ zō o koete 江戸のゴミ処理再考：“リサイクル都市”•“清潔都市”像を越えて. 67 Xue, Yong, “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’: Economic and Ecological Links between Urban and Rural Areas in Late Imperial Jiangnan,” 41–71; Worster, Donald, “The Good Muck: Towards and Excremental History of China;” and Cao, Mu, “The Public Lavatory of Tianjin: A Change of Urban Faeces Disposal in the Process of Modernisation,” 196–218. 35 most previous studies treat night soil management as entirely separate from the management of other waste types. This thesis, however, will provide the first comprehensive insights into the historical integration of the night soil system and Chinese urban waste management. To date, there is only one other article that briefly addresses this relation, namely medical historian Yu Xinzhong’s “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China”,68 which presents the first broader historical overview on waste pollution and waste management in China to an English-speaking readership. Its aim is that of an explorative introduction; it is not very place-specific and sets up waste management in the broader context of urban sanitization, roughly covering a time span from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. While this article remains too descriptive to answer any in- depth questions, its important achievement is the recognition that waste pollution in urban China has a historical dimension that goes back at least to late Qing dynasty. Two more survey studies in English language that place waste management at their very center of analysis are historian Joshua L. Goldstein’s “The Remains of the Everyday: One Hundred Years of Recycling in Beijing,” and social historian Stefan Landsberger’s very recent Beijing Garbage: A City Besieged by Waste.69 While Landsberger’s publication has book length, it is not a full historical study. Landsberger uses his assessment of historical waste management practices in Beijing mostly as a background against which to portray contemporary dynamics of waste treatment organization, pollution management, knowledge transmission, and awareness building for waste problems. He is the first scholar to have presented a full range overview on waste treatment in a Chinese city from the late nineteenth century into the present, however, the book’s contemporary contents are much more developed than the historical parts of the book and its focus on policy analysis and civil society actors actually makes it more of a sociological than a historical study. Goldstein, in turn, builds his longue-durée investigation around the argument that historical, informal recycling structures in Beijing form the core pillar of the city’s late twentieth-century recycling structures, weighting the significance of historically more ‘remote’ recycling structures equally to more recent structures.

68 Yu, Xinzhong, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China.” 69 Goldstein, Joshua L., “The Remains of the Everyday: One Hundred Years of Recycling in Beijing;” Landsberger, Stefan, Beijing Garbage. 36 Further historical studies in English language have addressed waste management and pollution in China, however, not as their main topic. Instead, these publications briefly address waste problems in the context of the history of public health, the attempt to sanitize late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century Chinese cities both for the reduction of health risks and for the sake of establishing ‘clean cities’ as symbols of China’s modernity and future- orientedness. Key publications on this topic, all of which place the evolution of different notions of health, public order, the development of urban sanitary infrastructures and the institutionalization of public health in the context of national identity, include Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity; Kerrie L. MacPherson’s A Wilderness of Marshes; Kristin Stapleton’s Civilizing Chengdu, Miriam Gross’s Farewell to the God of Plague; Yip Ka-che’s Health and National Reconstruction in Nationalist China; and Angela Ki Chi Leung and Charlotte Furth’s edited volume Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia.70 None of these studies treats waste problems or waste management in great detail, as their main purpose is to lay the groundwork for our understanding of the interrelatedness of public health and state building. By consulting these studies, one cannot expect to get a differentiated impression of waste treatment during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but waste is correctly portrayed as a huge challenge in Chinese urban environments that concerned policymakers, administrators, urban planners, and health experts alike. Much more detailed findings are presented by a number of Chinese authors, who address the severity of urban waste pollution and the struggle it represented for local decision-makers during the jindai and Revolutionary periods with much more determination. In the broader context of the history of public health and urban sanitation in China, these works have unjustifiably received little acknowledgement by a Western readership. They place themselves in the same field of discussion as the abovementioned publications, addressing very similar questions with regard to the interests of their Chinese readership and placing particular importance on the tension field between ideas, infrastructures, and

70 Rogaski, Ruth, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty Port China; MacPherson, Kerrie L., A Wilderness of Marshes: The Origins of Public Health in Shanghai; Gross, Miriam, Farewell to the God of Plague: Chairman Mao’s Campaign to Deworm China; Stapleton, Kristin, Civilizing Chengdu; Yip, Ka-che, Health and National Reconstruction in Nationalist China: The Development of Modern Health Services, 1928–1937; Leung, Angela Ki Chi and Furth, Charlotte, ed., Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century. 37 knowledge surrounding public health that were identified as ‘Western’ and their integration into the formation of a Chinese national identity. These publications discover waste as a whole area of discussions on the history of public health in China that the previously introduced publications have paid insufficient attention to; they therefore provide key insights about the degree of waste pollution at different points in time in different locations in China as well as different perceptions of and reactions to this kind of pollution developed by both power holders and urbanites. First of all is Peng Shanmin’s 彭善民 Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming 公共卫生与上海都市文明 (“Public Health and Shanghai’s Metropolitan Civilization”).71 Although waste problems are not his book’s main topic, Peng dedicates an entire chapter to the environmental dimensions of public health and another one to waste management. Engaging a large variety of local archival material from Shanghai, he is one of the first Chinese authors to grant waste the importance and depth of study it deserves, given the dimensions of problems it caused. Yet, Peng’s analysis of jindai waste management in Shanghai remains relatively descriptive; it is portrayed as an— unarguably important—component of broader public health problems in jindai Shanghai’s special setting of administrative diversion and multi-ethnicity. Questions about the local construction of waste are not discussed; neither is the significance of local jindai waste management infrastructures for the xiandai period. The case is similar with Liao Dawei 廖大伟 and Luo Hong’s 罗红 “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua (1927–1937) 从华界垃圾治理看上海城市的近代化 (1927-1937) (Urban Modernization in Shanghai from the Viewpoint of Waste Administration in the Chinese Parts of the City)” and Liu Anbing’s 刘岸冰 Jindai Shanghai chengshi huanjing weisheng guanli chutan 近代上海城市环境卫生管理初探 (A first Assessment of Urban Environmental Hygiene Management in jindai Shanghai)”.72 But despite the fact that all three publications discuss waste solely from a pollution management perspective without making reference to any other aspects of the societal relationship with

71 Peng Shanmin, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming (1898–1949) 公共卫生与上海都市文明 (1898–1949) [Public Hygiene and Shanghai’s Urban Civilization]. 72 Liao Dawei 廖大伟 and Luo Hong 罗红, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua (1927–1937) 从华界垃圾治理看上海城市的近代化 (1927–1937);” Liu Anbing 刘岸冰, “Jindai Shanghai chengshi huanjing weisheng guanli chutan 近代上海城市环境卫生管理初探.” 38 waste, they provide important information to complete a solid first impression of the severity of environmental damage caused by urban waste pollution and its implications for the establishment of local public health infrastructures during the jindai period. They lay important groundwork for this thesis, facilitating its comparative approach significantly by providing indispensable basic information on different local contexts. Further to mention are a handful of publications by Chinese authors on waste management during the Revolutionary period. Generally, there still is limited open discussion on environmental problems during the Mao era in Chinese academia, which probably results in reluctance to explore this topic more comprehensively. But as there are two sides about waste management during the Revolutionary period, one of them being waste pollution, the other being resource circulation in the context of Chinese national recycling under socialism, two articles in particular—Xu Xinnian 许新年 and Wang Dong’s 王东 Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue’ yu xin shiji ‘jieyue shehuixing’ jianshe 建国初期‘增产节约运动’与新世纪‘节约型社会’建设 (The ‘Increase Production and Practice Economy’ Campaign and the Construction of the New Century’s ‘Economizing Society’ during the Early People’s Republic)” as well as Li Zhiying’s 李志英 Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong qumai jiqi shuang mianxiang——jiyu gongye shengchan lingyu de kaocha 增产节约运动的来龙去脉及其双面相——基于工业生产领域的考察 (The Process and the Two Sides of the Campaign to Increase Production and Practice Economy—An Investigation Based on the Subject of Industrial Production)”73 have come forward with a first attempt towards critical discussion. They revisit and critically discuss the “Zengchan jieyue 增产节约 (Increase Production and Practice Economy)” campaign that supported the planned circular economy during the first decade of the People’s Republic, pointing out the various planning mistakes that led to the organizational failure of national recycling. However, neither article openly addresses pollution problems. Another publication, which does critically discuss waste pollution, is Wang Ruifang’s 王瑞芳 Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili: Xin Zhongguo

73 Xu Xinnian 许新年 and Wang Dong 王东, “Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue’ yu xin shiji ‘jieyuexing shehui’ jianshe 建国初期‘增产节约运动’与新世纪‘节约型社会’建设;” Li Zhiying 李志英, “Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong qumai jiqi shuang mianxiang——jiyu gongye shengchan lingyu de kaocha 增产节约运动的来龙去脉及其双面相——基于工业生产领域的考察.” 39 huanbao shiye de qibu 从“三废”利用到污染治理: 新中国环保事业的起步 (From the Utilizing the ‘Three Wastes’ to Pollution Governance: The Beginning of Environmental Protection in The People’s Republic)”.74 Wang focuses on a reinterpretation of environmental problems during the last years of the Mao era, when contamination especially with sewage and industrial wastes and discharges had already exceeded any acceptable degree. Although this article stresses the ‘progressiveness’ of attempts towards pollution mitigation during these last years and throughout the rest of the 1970s and does not go much into detail regarding the entire length of the Mao era, it implicitly criticizes the decision-makers of the Mao era for having let waste pollution get out of hand. It is therefore to be regarded as a key publication with regard to an open discussion on Chinese waste history.

74 Wang Ruifang 王瑞芳, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili: Xin Zhongguo huanbao shiye de qibu 从“三废”利用到污染治理: 新中国环保事业的起步.” 40 PART I:

INSTITUTIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF WASTE MANAGEMENT, 1890s–1980s

The first part of this thesis traces back twentieth century municipal waste management to its basics—its relationship with the public health sector and sanitary administration, its legal background and practical implementation at the local level in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, with special regard to the cities’ different ‘systemic’ preconditions for environmental problem solving. Without a proper understanding for the embeddedness of modern urban waste management—in China as much as anywere else—in processes of institution- building, legal development, and urban development and planning, it would be impossible to accurately assess the historical emergence of problems with waste management. It would also be more difficult to explain structural preconditions for waste pollution as well as for the development of sustainability concepts. To date, very little historical research has been presented that explores the institutional and organizational development of waste management in any location in China. Waste pollution in China is not well understood; most previously presented explainations of the origin and persistence of waste problems in China tend to oversimplify and generalize waste pollution as a by-product of China’s on- going national development and weakness in environmental policy implementation. With the following two chapters, this thesis seeks to promote to a more thorough understanding of the historical embeddedness of Chinese urban waste problems in the structural development of urban administration. Topics that will be discussed are the permeation of hygienic knowledge, sanitary institution building and lawmaking as well as horizons for pollution awareness and even environmental thinking at the local level. An inherent part of the discussion is the investigation of differing degrees of ‘Westernization’ of waste management in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Chengdu, the latter being portrayed as more representative of an assumed ‘more typically Chinese’ approach to waste management in the present analysis. Both systems are examined and compared for their strengths and weaknesses, especially their preconditions for waste management efficiency, their long-term capability to

41 handle growing waste accumulations, and their capacities for sustainable waste management. Chapter 1 and 2 both address these questions, providing answers from different topical viewpoints. Developments during the first and second half of the twentieth century are purposefully divided in the overview: the year 1949 with the foundation of the People’s Republic of China marked a clear watershed between the ‘more Western’ and ‘more Chinese’ approaches. While the following argumentation identifies prewar Shanghai more closely with colonial Hong Kong due to the strong influence of Western public administration in both locations, the post-1949 divergence between the communist state on the Chinese Mainland and the increasingly capitalist colony of Hong Kong, in turn, diluted almost all previous similarities. Instead, it integrated Shanghai and Chengdu more closely into new and unique patterns of waste management that were distinctly shaped by the socialist planned economy and communist ideology in the organization of public affaires. Another target of the following two chapters is to integrate waste management in all three cities with already existing scholarly research on the history of public health in China. While the close connections between nation building, rule of law or administrative institution building and the development of healthcare in China are well researched, this part of the dissertation contributes to a discussion of the hitherto underresearched aspect of the growing importance of waste management for a ‘hygienically modern’ Chinese urban environment. In the course of the following analysis, comprehensive reference to previous studies on the history of public health in China will be made in order to integrate already established knowledge on the development of the healthcare sector with a hitherto missing overview over the organizational background of waste management. The assessment of this aspect allows for a critical analysis of waste problems in the context of broader political and administrative challenges that concerned the public health sector in both Mainland China and Hong Kong throughout most of the twentieth century. It will also help to assess legal, institutional and organizational structures more holistically with regard to the causes of environmental pollution, which came to evolve into a substantial challenge for Chinese urban public administration from the early twentieth century onward. As the following two chapters will show, certain underlying institutional, organizational and legal structures show an extensive historical continuance

42 throughout the twentieth century despite repeated change of political governance Structural achievements on the one hand but also serious, unsolved problems on the other hand were passed on to future generations of politicians and administrators. As this part of the thesis argues, these problems, some of which originate in the early twentieth century, have noticeably affected the development of municipal waste management systems both in Mainland China (represented by Shanghai and Chengdu) and Hong Kong at least until the recent past, if not the present. Despite important achievements in the general setting of standards and practice routines for waste removal symptomatic shortcomings in administrative performance and legal implementation for sustainable waste management have contributed to this situation.

1. Waste Administration: A Local or a National Responsibility?

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the legal and institutional foundations of twentieth century waste management in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu in the context of the history of public health and environmental hygiene in China. It will compare organizational preconditions for waste management aministration and critically investigate the development of sanitary and environmental protection lawmaking by putting key findings of previously published studies on the origins of public health in China in perspective with their implications for waste management. Several large studies of the public health movement in Mainland China and Hong Kong mention the role of public health for the development of institutionalized waste treatment and surface sanitation and, reversely, also point out the significance of waste management for the strengthening of the public health sector. 75 However, most previously published analyses focus on the development of the medical sector and treat waste management only marginally.

75 The most important studies are: Yip, Health and National Reconstruction in Nationalist China; Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity; Li Honghe 李洪河, “Jianguo chuqi de chengshi gonggong weisheng zhili shulun 建国初期的城市公共卫生治理述论;” Zhang Taishan 张泰山, “Minguo shiqi guoren dui gonggong weisheng jianshe de renshi 民国时期国人对公共卫生建设的认识;” Leung et al., Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia; Chen Jing 陈静, “Qing mo minguo shiqi jingcha yu chengshi weisheng xiandaihua yanjiu 清末民国时期警察与城市卫生现代化研究;” Peckham, Robert, “Infective Economies: Empire, Panic and the Business of Disease;” and Choy, Howard Y.F., ed., Discourses of Disease: Writing Illness, the Mind and the Body in Modern China. 43 Although healthcare promotion was without doubt the most important objective of the Chinese public health movement, the almost exclusive focus on healthcare in these studies unintendedly plays down the role of waste management for the improvement of urban sanitation, people’s health, and the urban environment. By bringing waste management into the picture, the following sections aim at completing previous views on the development of public health in China and counterbalance the focus that previous publications have placed on the medical sector. This chapter’s central aim is to comparatively discuss four key aspects that shaped the historical development of institutional waste management in all three cities over time: the degree of centralization of government, the integration of rule of law, the local penetrance of national sanitary strategies, and the implementation of sustainability goals. As will be shown, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu can be closely compared in some aspects while they will be constrastingly juxtaposed in others; for the period of the late 1800s to the 1940s, Shanghai and Hong Kong shared various similarities that contrasted to Chengdu while at the same time, the Chinese-administered parts of Shanghai always showed parallels to public administration in Chengdu as well. For the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, under communist rule, it was Shanghai and Chengdu that compared best while public administration in colonial Hong Kong followed a significantly different path. Despite these differences, all three cities almost simultaneously developed similarly serious problems with waste pollution during the mid-to late twentieth century, which suggests that pollution was tied less to a particular form of government rather than to concrete motives of decision-making, the local degree of rule of law, and the motivation or empowerment to establish long-term environmental standards. Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, despite featuring very different organization at the municipal level throughout most of the twentieth century, share the common feature that problems with waste pollution can be attributed to a century-long history of weaknesses in sanitary administration and lawmaking that were passed on from one generation of administrators to the next. They also have another aspect in common, which concerns the shift of waste problems from the urban constructed sphere to the natural environment: as decades passed, waste management began to transform from a target of public health into an environmental problem, creating a new dimension of complexity

44 that challenged the capacities of the existing public health administration systems. The experience of waste pollution deeply transformed public health administration at the local as well as, in Mainland China’s case, at the national level. As this chapter will show, however, national-level guidelines and local- level practical strategies for public health in Mainland China were strongly divided from each other throughout most of the twentieth century, yet waste pollution ultimately became a national concern that partially reunited national and local decision- and lawmaking. In colonial Hong Kong, a division between concerns of the British Empire as a whole and those of local colonial administrators had actually quite the reverse effect: waste pollution in Hong Kong was very much a distinctly local problem, which the United Kingdom was hardly concerned with. As will be demonstrated in this chapter, colonial Hong Kong’s attempt to introduce centralized sanitary management that backed by scientific knowledge and experience with institution-building from Europe, experienced no major struggles first establishing an initial institutional and legal basis for urban sanitation and waste management. Later on, however, the colonial government began to rest on its early achievements, slowly letting pollution get out of hand while hesitating to implement overdue reforms of the local waste management system. In Mainland China, the development of new structures for sanitary administration was highly dependent on the struggle to locally implement the process of state building, which often resulted in incomplete institution-building and lawmaking. Besides the repeated introduction of new centralized administrative structures and legislation, public health on the Mainland was, in practice, dominated by local strategic experiments that often differed significantly from the national and even the local legal framework. Consequently, the development of the institutional and legal framework was rather slow in its progress, and it was disrupted several times by the aforementioned changes of the political system. Each new government was certainly able to build on the achievements of its predecessor—as much as the Republican government profited from the first attempts at structural and administrative reform that had taken place during the last decades of the Qing, so did Republican institution-building and public health reform provide a basis for the communist public health movement. At the same time, however, unsolved problems were passed on as well, which

45 resulted in a backward waste management system that followed outdated techniques and norms and continued many of the the former government’s mistakes without attempting substantial reform. During the Late Qing and Republican Periods, such problems emerged both in Chengdu and Shanghai’s Chinese-administered districts. After the foundation of the People’s Republic, they solidified and became one of the major reasons for waste pollution during the Mao era.

1.1. Waste in the Context of East Asian “Hygienic Modernity”

In late 19th century China, the pre-modern concept of weisheng 卫生, lit. “to protect life”, originally referred to various traditional methods of self- and body cultivation) before it merged with Western-inspired notions of “public health”, which also became the new official interpretation of the term. In her comprehensive analysis of the origins of public health in China, Ruth Rogaski has described in detail how the influence of Western medicine, science, and sanitary bureaucracy of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries drove and shaped the establishment of a Chinese public health sector as well as the slow transformation of the term weisheng from its traditional to its new meaning.76 During this process, the connotation of the term switched from addressing the individual to addressing the public, and new connections were drawn concerning the “purity” versus “impurity” of both the human body, the public sphere, and society in general. They became important criteria upon which to determine the Chinese society’s developmental status; besides just providing sanitation and health care, public health evolved as a means of expression to demonstrate China’s ability to overcome the “great divergence” from the West and keep up with globalizing standards of modernization, and counterbalance Western scientific superiority. In its early to mid-twentieth century Chinese interpretation, the term weisheng not only encompassed hygiene and an advancement of medical standards but also a nurturing and strengthening of the Chinese nation state. It became an important pillar of Republican nationalism and understanding of modernity, which Rogaski thus distinctly labels as a “hygienic modernity”.77 As Rogaski demonstrates in her work, this process first emerged in the treaty ports as the most immediate spaces

76 Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity. 77 Ibid., esp. 5–6, 12–15, 17–18, 126. 46 of encounter of Chinese local culture and Western administration but it was also influenced by the construction of the Japanese public health sector, especially during the Japanese occupation (1937–1945).78

1.1.1. The Introduction of Public Health to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu

In the treaty ports, Western systems of public sanitation were imported to the foreign settlements first. When, for example, the British arrived in Shanghai in 1842, they brought with them recent hygienic practices that they knew as “preventative medicine”; later they introduced bacteriological science to China. Since the conditions they first found in China appeared to be much less ‘hygienic’ than they were accustomed to, they introduced structures to foster healthcare and urban sanitation early on during the urban planning process of Shanghai, especially in the form of water drainage, wide streets, a decent network of hospitals, and the provision of street sanitation. Basic sanitary structures were thus introduced to Shanghai with the public sphere in view from the very beginning. On the personal level the British experienced a stark divide between their own habits, which they perceived as ‘hygienic’, and the Chinese locals’ practices, which to them appeared oblivious of the importance of sanitation. This divide often led to racially connoted discrimination against the local Chinese, who were perceived to present a threat against ‘European cleanliness’ in the treaty port setting.79 The introduction of public health to Hong Kong shared similarities with the establishment of a public health sector in Shanghai’s foreign districts. While only very basic healthcare and sanitary administration was introduced during the early decades of the colony, the Hong Kong government became increasingly concerned about public health during the 1890s, and especially in the context of the critical plague outbreak of 1894. During roughly five decades of intense trade activity, the British colonialists had begun to perceive the Hong Kong harbor as a ‘hub’ for the spread of germs, since it was permanently exposed to a constant influx of possibly infected people or contaminated goods. Further concerned by the plague outbreak, the Hong Kong sanitary authorities began to radically control

78 Ibid., 77–78, 135–136. 79 Villalta Puig, Stephanie, “James Henderson’s Shanghai Hygiene and the British Constitution in Early Modern China,” 20–21, 23, 42, 49. 47 the sanitation of the public sphere, especially by use of force against native Chinese who were almost generically “pathologized”.80 As Peckham points out, their drastic measures not only affected Chinese individuals but also their goods and belongings, which the British had come to perceive as generally unhygienic, bad quality, and possible disease transmitters. Such measures included house-to- house inspections, forced quarantine of infected individuals, and destruction of Chinese property by fire.81 Due to the fact that the consequences of epidemics immediately affected the free trade economy, such practice was common not only in Hong Kong but throughout the entire British Empire. Peckham argues that the fierce measures taken are to be regarded as “imperial biopolitics” or an economically motivated early attempt towards biosecurity with globalized characteristics.82 Sanitation, as first introduced by Western colonizers on Chinese territory, was thus very much an act of forced control and racial segregation. Despite all initial brute force, however, it will be shown in the following that foreign sanitary management in both Shanghai and Hong Kong paved the road for important milestones on the route to healthier living conditions. In contrast to Shanghai and Hong Kong, Chengdu’s sanitary transformation of the Late Imperial period was, although influenced by hygienic modernity, not modeled distinctly after Western ideals. But despite Chengdu’s rather isolated position in the far West of China, as Stapleton points out, its local authorities always orientated themselves at progressive examples from the east coast— especially from Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Japan—for inspiration in urban development and public administration.83 During the late nineteenth and early early twentieth century, public administration in Chengdu, including public health, was not yet fully institutionalized. Instead, it was co-ordinated in a rather informal joint effort between the traditional neighborhood-based baojia 保家84 system, trade guilds, benevolent associations and, as of 1902, the newly formed

80 Peckham, Robert, “Hong Kong Junk: Plague and the Economy of Chinese Things,” 37. 81 Ibid., 44–46. 82 Peckham, “Infective Economies.” 83 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 13. 84 The baojia was a system of neighborhood self-governance in Qing cities. While the Qing administration was hardly involved in baojia responsibilities—besides providing bureaus for baojia leaders and co-ordinating certain activities—, the baojia accomplished important functions in public law and order, such as street patrols, protection of public security, and conflict solving. Single baojia units were lead by neighborhood representatives elected by the local families. Cf. Wang, Di, Street Culture in Chengdu: Public Space, Urban Commoners, and Local Politics, 1870–1930, 23, 24. 48 Chengdu Police, which was strongly oriented at the Tokyo Police in its structure.85 To most of Chengdu’s elites of the time, weisheng was still not understood as “sanitation” but in its original sense, as “nurturing life”. It was thus not the Chengdu authorities’ top priority to reach modernist milestones in the public health field, and attempts to sanitize the city remained incomplete, yet the formation of a powerful network of local institutions and organizations that were at least partially responsible for the organization and supervision of sanitation and healthcare was initiated during this phase.86 In general, decision-makers in Mainland China’s new public health sector remained eager to ensure that sanitary methods and techniques were not simply copied from Western models but adapted to the Chinese society’s conditions.87 In a country as vast and diverse as China, it seemed impossible to implement the same standards and methods throughout. During the Republican period, China’s sanitary authorities generally believed that local public health systems were therefore best established experimentally instead of through direct institutional transfer from one location to another. Experiments with various approaches to public health and confusion resulting from a lack of focus were characteristic of Republican Chengdu; as Liu finds, the struggle to institutionalize sanitary approaches and define clear structural goals led to various difficulties with the maintenance of sanitary standards that expressed themselves in frequent food contamination, poor drinking water quality, and shortcomings in environmental hygiene. 88 The general result of experimental approaches to public health anywhere in Mainland China was an instable and only limitedly successful administration that had great difficulty determining how to develop the public health sector locally. According to Zhang, the experimental approach was in itself contradictory to the common goal of a general, uniform advancement of public health in China as a whole. Additional discrepancy was caused by the Republican public health movement’s strong focus on big cities: small cities, poor urban regions and the countryside were often neglected.89

85 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 71, 74. 86 Ibid., 24, 136–138, 143–144. 87 In the context of this thesis, this applies to the case of Chengdu but to a certain extent also to the Chinese-administered parts of Shanghai. 88 Liu Xueyi 刘雪怡, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan: Minguo houqi Chengdu gonggong weisheng guanli kunjing 非制度化社会实验：民国后期成都公共卫生管理的困境,” 141. 89 Zhang, “Minguo shiqi guoren dui gonggong weisheng jianshe de renshi,” 49. 49 1.1.2. From Public Health to Waste Management With the progress of hygienic modernity, waste removal was increasingly understood as a central factor of urban public sanitation. Yu describes that during the Late Imperial period, most Chinese urban environments (with the exception of the treaty ports) had been severely polluted with human excrements and household waste due to a lack of waste removal and provision of public toilets. People used to dump their garbage directly in front of their houses, where in some locations, according to Yu, it piled up to several meters high and elevated the street level so that passers-by had to climb down to their houses on ladders.90 Yu thus proves the widespread assumption that nineteenth century Chinese cities were ‘cleaner’ than European cities wrong. At least, the larger cities were severely polluted; Yu also mentions that “towns and cities of medium and small size were more sanitary than major cities, as they were less densely populated and more accessible to peasants needing night soil”, thus, their accumulations of street waste and excrements was greatly reduced. While “urban filth was considered bad for health” in most Chinese cities of the Late Imperial Period, it “was not explicitly associated with contagious epidemics and never provoked integrated state actions”. 91 Ultimately, it was the Republican period and its general advancements in the application of Western medicine and bacteriology that brought a substantial ‘sanitary turn’ to Chinese cities beyond the coastal areas. To sum up the above, the origins of twentieth century waste management organization took place in a complex historical setting that included nationstate- and institution building, sanitary politics, and encounters between Chinese traditional practices and “Western” modernity, all of which will be analyzed in more detail in the following. As complex as the process of building the Chinese public health sector was, so was the process of finding locally adequate and efficient approaches to waste management. The following sections will address the concrete steps taken to institutionalize waste management, give it a legal framework, and integrate it into public health administration.

90 Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China,” 53. 91 Ibid., 58. 50 1.2. Sanitary Institution Building: The Origins of Centralized Municipal Waste Management, 1900–1940s

1.2.1. Sanitary Administration in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Chengdu

During the first half of the twentieth century, the sanitary institutions and regulatory frameworks in Hong Kong and in Shanghai’s foreign districts were comparable as they were both derived from already existing Western examples of urban sanitary administration and put into practice by the means of colonial power. The establishment of public health institutions and the transfer of basic sanitary regulations from Europe to Hong Kong and Shanghai catalyzed the improvement of sanitation levels in both cities.92 However, not all administrative approaches imported from the West suited the local conditions automatically. Legislation and administration had to be adapted to local circumstances and the institutional basis and necessary infrastructure had to be established from scratch. Despite various similarities in the colonial governance, however, both cities differed substantially from each other in various other aspects. Goodmann and Goodman point out the most important difference, which was the respective local form and degree of colonialization: Shanghai’s incomplete colonial status, which is usually referred to by the often-misinterpreted description “semi-colonial”, was characterized by a multi-complex balance of political interests and a very ununiform public administration. Goodman and Goodman93 stress the ambiguities the semi-colonial system was characterized by: Shanghai was at the same time a place of international integration and segregation, detached from and dependent on the foreign powers, influenced by external as well as national, often antagonizing motivations, oriented at state capitalism but at the same time remaining skeptical towards the global. Foremost, Shanghai was not governed by a single leadership entity that pursued uniform interests, as was the case in Hong

92 While it is a fact that urban centers in late nineteenth century industrialized Europe had—at least in principal—developed both the scientific knowledge and infrastructure to establish sanitary standards that were significantly higher than in China at the time, this does not automatically imply that European cities were actually clean. For example, Jackson, Silguy, and Windmüller agree that during the late 1800s and even into the 1930s, numerous European cities still significantly lagged behind the already existing standards in their implementation of public healthcare and urban sanitation. The only Western city that had effectively overcome most of its 19th-century shortcomings in sanitary administration by that time was New York City (cf. Jackson, Dirty Old London; Silguy, L’histoire des homes et leurs ordures; Windmüller, Die Kehrseite der Dinge; Melosi, Garbage in the Cities). 93 Cf. Goodman, Bryna and Goodman, David S.G., “Introduction: Colonialism and China,” 1, 5. See also Osterhammel, Jürgen, “Semi-Colonialism and Informal Empire in Twentieth-Century China: Towards a Framework of Analysis,” 290–314. 51 Kong. Decision-making in Shanghai’s political setting involved both racially mixed and racially exclusive administrative courts as well as a variety of decision- making bodies and interest groups, each one of which was trying to serve its own referential group. In opposition to Hong Kong where decision-making was unilateral, the political setting in Shanghai was characterized by splintered opinions, slow progress, and incomplete or contradictory decision-making despite which, in many cases, stood in stark contrast to Shanghai’s technological progressivity. Shanghai’s ‘East-West hybridity’ and political complexity resembled other treaty port cities but set it apart from other striving cities on the Chinese mainland. Chengdu’s developing public health sector, on the other hand, appeared to be much more uniformly organized during the Late Qing and Republican periods than Shanghai’s. With its much simpler physical and administrative infrastructure and a high remaining influence of ‘traditional’ informal structures in its administrative system, Chengdu’s early twentieth century sanitary administration stands in contrast to the modernist Chinese east coast.94 Taking a provincial capital like Chengdu as a constrasting example allows for a more direct comparison between the structures of sanitary administration in Shanghai and Hong Kong, where sanitary administration was the most ‘westernized’. In direct comparison, the institutionalization of public health was more complicated in Shanghai than it was in Hong Kong due to the fact that not one sanitary administration system existed there, but three. Shanghai’s International Settlement shared various similarities with colonial Hong Kong; in the context of surface sanitation and waste management, a high resemblance is visible in legislative programs and sanitary regulations, the enforcement of sanitary law, and the hierarchic organization of sanitary services (cf. especially chapters 1.3 and 2.2). In the French Concession, sanitary regulations were less articulate, and sanitary service seems to have been more laissez-faire under the Concession’s Administration Municipale de Changhai (AMC) than under the International Settlement’s Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC). However, the French Concession still compares more closely to the International Settlement than to Shanghai’s Chinese-administered Walled City and the Greater Shanghai area, where the general degree of institutionalization was less developed and regulatory frameworks less meticulously pronounced. Whilst stressing the

94 Cf. Goodman and Goodman, “Introduction,” 8–9. 52 importance of cleanliness and disease prevention and adopting key structures of sanitary administration from its foreign counterparts, the Chinese authorities preferred to keep regulations rather basic and took a pragmatist approach instead, placing more importance on supervision than on rule of law. In these aspects, the Chinese-adminstered parts of Shanghai shared important characteristics with Chengdu.

HONG KONG: A STRUGGLE FOR EXECUTIVE POWER Hong Kong’s public health sector did not develop simultaneously with other administrative units, such as, for example, urban planning or tax administration. For example, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council formed its first distinct committee for sanitary decision-making, the Sanitary Board, no earlier than in 1883. It was responsible for the entire medical sector, sanitary urban planning, and public health education. Its tasks included, for example, the prevention of drinking water pollution, the management of water drainage, the sanitary maintenance of public buildings, harbor conservation, the disinfection and disposal of dead bodies, the maintenance of mortuaries and cemeteries, as well as, to a large proportion, disease prevention.95 In context with waste management, the Sanitary Board organized and supervised human and household waste collection and disposal, provided waste bins for all public and private premises, established and sanitized public lavatories and maintained cesspits for night soil collection. However, given its numerous other responsibilities, street sanitation and waste management was only a field of secondary importance in its decision-making. 96 The Board consisted of eleven or less core members elected out of the Legislative Council, only two of whom were Chinese. In addition, a number of officers and inspectors was appointed whose it task was to ensure the implementation of the regulations issued by the Board.97 During its first decades of activity, it lacked the executive authority and means to substantially transform urban structures. Its strongest tool, “nuisance inspection”, was a resource-intensive daily undertaking that was difficult to upkeep by the chronically understaffed inspection division. Despite some success, the Legislative Council increasingly criticized the Sanitary Board

95 “Ordinance No. 23 of 1887: An Ordinance to Amend Ordinance No. 16 of 1887,” 29th August, 1887, in The Ordinances of the Legislative Council of the Colony of Hongkong, Commencing with the year 1844, 2182–2183. 96 “Ibid., 2184–2185. 97 Ibid., 2181–2182, 2191. 53 for its failure to achieve satisfactory conditions, downplaying the problem that the Board was actually only partially integrated in general legislative decision- making. Another problem was the fact that more Chinese expertise was needed in order to match decision-making and administration with the real-life circumstances of the Chinese population, which the Board, in its original constellation, failed to take into account. Only as the underrepresented minority of Chinese and Eurasian government representatives began to grow and gain influence in the Legislative Council did a gradual paradigm shift take place.98 Despite early suggestions to reform the Sanitary Board and give it more executive power—a vision supported especially by LegCon’s most famous Chinese representative of the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds, Ho Kai (何啟, Mand. He Qi, 1859–1914)—, these weaknesses dominated sanitary administration until the Board was eventually replaced through the foundation of the Urban Council in 1935, in the course of comprehensive governmental restructuring. The new Urban Council’s responsibilities were divided through the establishment of a Sanitary, a Medical, and a Public Works Department, each equipped with the required legislative and executive power that the Sanitary Board had been lacking. The Sanitary Department, which took on the task of urban sanitation and waste management, inherited its responsibilities from the former Sanitary Board in almost identical form, but the clear division of sanitary work, medical services and urban planning now allowed for an enhanced focus on each different field of expertise, thus facilitated a more successful integration of public health with urban planning. The Urban Council remained relatively unchanged in its basic functions until 1973, when large-scale administrative restructurization led to another reorganization of urban services.99

SHANGHAI: DISINTEGRATION AND ASYNCHRONICITY Shanghai’s institutions that compare most directly to Hong Kong’s Sanitary Board and Urban Council were the International Settlement’s Public Health Department (a part of the Shanghai Municipal Council) and the Bureau d’Hygiène (apart of the Administration municipale de la Concession Française à Shanghai. The Shanghai Municipal Council, founded in 1854, was the “major political

98 Cf. Carroll, John, “Ho Kai: A Chinese Reformer in Colonial Hong Kong,” 55–72. 99 Lau, Y.W., A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong 1883–1999: From the Sanitary Board to the Urban Council and the Regional Council, 73–74, 127. 54 player”100 in Shanghai’s balance of power, yet most of its work solely concerned matters within its own settlement borders. Its membership composition was rather disproportional to the distribution of racial origin among the International Settlement’s population. In 1930, the Council counted five Chinese and two Japanese members but also five Britons and two Americans. This looks like an even distribution at first glance, however, the actual population consisted of 970,000 Chinese residents opposite 18,000 Japanese and 18,000 “other” (among them only 6,000 British). 101 The Council’s administrative executive was its departments, which took their directives from small council committees formed by single council members and a limited number of elected ratepayers. The departments were usually staffed with a minority of Britons in almost all senior positions, while a majority of Chinese filled the lower ranking offices. The Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) was the most important department, its authority being generally British, while its lower-level personnel included foremost Chinese alongside European, Japanese, and Sikh staff. Other important departments were the Public Works Department and the Public Health Department, both of which were integrated in sanitary administration; while the Public Works Department contributed most to the establishment of sanitary infrastructure, the Public Health Department centered its work on public health education and campaigns, but sometimes their projects merged. Both had little executive power of their own as they had to take orders from the different Council Committees. In practice, all of their affairs were were managed by their lower- ranking Chinese personnel, which, effectively, resulted in reduced control over the actual execution of tasks.102 Whereas the International Settlement was self-administered and not formally tied to the British government, the French Concession was managed by the French consul, with all its decision-making processes directly dependent on instructions from Paris. Although the French Municipal Council (Conseil d’administration municipale de la Concession Française à Shanghai had been founded as early as 1862, the consul continued to have a say in legislative affairs and often assigned the council members himself. Financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

100 Jackson, Isabella, “Who Ran the Treaty Ports? A Study of the Shanghai Municipal Council,” 43. 101 Ibid., 44–45, 47. Cf. table 2 in the Appendix for the figures. 102 Jackson, “Who Ran the Treaty Ports?,” 52–53, 55. 55 the investments made by the Conseil d’Administration into the concession’s infrastructure were far less successful than the International Settlement’s but major ‘modern’ facilities (such as running water, electricity, gas lighting, road construction, and public transport) were all installed. Sometimes, the concession’s centralized governance approach allowed for quick procedures that served the whole local population, not only a chosen selection of them. For example, running water was free of access to all residents via public fountains, while in the International Settlement, it was delivered per household and only upon payed subscription. In its administrative structure, the Conseil d’Administration was organized similarly to the Shanghai Municipal Council, with the Bureau d’Hygiène taking care of the sanitary sector.103 In contrast to the abovementioned achievements, administration in the French Concession was infamously troubled by triad activity, with parts of its administrative and police staff secretly or openly co-operating.104 Public health administration in the French Concession has hardly been studied to date, which is why information on it currently remains fragmentary. While the administrative core institutions in the International Settlement and French Concession were in operation long before the turn of the century, public health administration in the Chinese districts of Shanghai evolved with a certain delay. By the end of the 19th century, the foreign parts of Shanghai had all the basic public facilities and technology to meet Western standards of the time, yet access to these infrastructures was distributed unevenly throughout the city. Since the Chinese-administered districts were much less developed, the better living conditions in the foreign districts had a great influence on the aspirations of local Chinese everywhere in Shanghai. This pressured the Chinese government to push forward infrastructural development. Shanghai’s Chinese districts’ ‘modernist’ urban administration formally began during the last years of the Qing, or more precisely, in 1905, when a Chinese Municipal Government (Zong gongcheng ju 总工程局, or “General Works Bureau”) was formed after the model of the Shanghai Municipal Council. It took on tasks like canal works, road construction, and provision of water and electricity. Waste removal also fell under its duties. The Chinese Municipal Government, however, was not a uniform institution;

103 Cf. Henriot, Christian, “‘Invisible Deaths, Silent Deaths’: ‘Bodies Without Masters’ in Republican Shanghai,” 422. 104 Bergère, Marie-Claire, Shanghai: China’s Gateway to Modernity, 117, 119–120, 232. 56 instead, all work was distributed among various departments, which jointly formed the government but actually had no coordinative organ at their center.105 During the first three decades of the twentieth century (to be precise, until 1928), the General Works Bureau sustained an administrative system that was still closely oriented at the former imperial structures. It thus shared similarities with more peripheral Chinese cities that were less exposed to Western influence. According to Henriot, these partially pre-modern structures characterized most Chinese cities during the Late Qing and “Warlord” periods until the onset of the “Nanjing Decade” (1927–1937). These structures also characterized early twentieth century administration in Chengdu (as mentioned previously).106 The take of power of Jiang Jieshi’s nationalist government in Nanjing in 1927 was followed by a series of central structural reforms, which fundamentally changed urban administration. During the early years of the Republican period, however, most Chinese cities and their administrative systems remained embedded in traditional center–periphery trade and knowledge exchange networks that provided organizational structure and order, stood for long-term stability, and only required minimal governance. The main drivers of change were merchants, guilds, charitable organizations, and influential representatives of the gentry rather than politicians and local administrative units, the latter of which often merely served as observers of the legal system. Early twentieth-century Shanghai largely maintained such structures despite the local Chinese intellectual elites’ interest in Western civic affairs and public administration.107 Comprehensive institutional and legal reform eventually tookplace after 1927 when the Chinese Municipal Government was re-established as the Municipality of Greater Shanghai (Shanghai tebieshi zhengfu 上海特别是政府), which was much more closely orientated at Western models of urban governance. The new government and its administrative departments, however, began their work with no fitted legal framework, a relatively dysfunctional democratic structure, and rather weak authority. Although a Municipal Council (Gongbu ju 工部局) formally existed, it only had a consultative function and was inactive more often than active. Decision-making was accomplished by an Administrative Council formed by the mayor and his councilors, the directors of the administrative Bureaus (ju 局), and

105 Ibid., 109, 111, 125. 106 Henriot, Christian, Shanghai 1927–37: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization, 8. 107 Ibid., 1927–37, 8. 57 three to five delegates from the Municipal Council, yet executive power was concentrated on the mayor, who was also chief of the Shanghai police and the local armed forces as well as head of all administrative Bureaus. While the Bureaus themselves were almost entirely lacking authority and independence of action, ultimately even the mayor was dependent on subordinate structures. Due to the close relationship of Chinese municipalities with their provincial governments and the central Republican government during the Nanjing period, municipal laws were usually formed by state representatives in Nanjing, which made them uniform but ill-fitted to local conditions, and the mayor’s decision- making depended on the approval by the National Executive Yuan and its underlying agendas of provincial and state politics. This dependence was partially intended since it, in the case of the treaty port cities, guaranteed the Nanjing government greater control over all matters that involved foreigners. Apart from this dependence mechanism, Shanghai’s new municipal law was a loose mixture of previous laws and new regulations derived from current practice and recent experience. Henriot describes this municipal structure and legal framework as insufficient and unfit for self-government: it lacked participation and had a tendency to evoke indecisiveness and procrastination.108 Within this institutional framework, the Weisheng ju 卫生局 (Public Health Bureau) was the administrative unit for public health in Greater Shanghai. It often shared tasks with the Gongwu ju 工务局 (Public Works Bureau)—which, for example, removed and renovated hygienically problematic buildings and infrastructure—, and the Gongyong ju 公用局 (Public Utilities Bureau)—which was, for example, in charge of water treatment and the provision of electricity. Most generally, the Weisheng ju organized basic public health services and education as well as sanitary inspection. It was also in charge of organizing household waste transport and disposal, and of provision and maintenance of public lavatories.109 To sum it up, the early sanitary administration systems of both Hong Kong and Shanghai had structural weaknesses that compromised their efficiency. Both were characterized by a lack of integration of native Chinese decision-makers and difficulties to adapt their administrative approaches to the real local

108 Ibid., 24, 26–27, 32–33, 35–37. 109 Ibid., 174, 202. 58 circumstances. Beyond that, Hong Kong’s main problems lay in the Sanitary Board’s lack of executive authority, while Shanghai’s public health sector predominantly struggled with its division into three different administrative systems that developed asynchronically, were affected by an uneven distribution of important basic institutions and infrastructure, and did not co-operate with one another. For a successful accomplishment of waste management, all of these factors were unfavorable. They demonstrate that institutionalization, while being key to the establishment of sanitary administration itself, was no guarantor of successful administration per se, irrespective of the specific application of Western or Western-inspired administrative approaches. As will be further elaborated in this first part of the thesis, the general condition of both Hong Kong’s and Shanghai’s early instituitional frameworks for sanitary administration constituted various structural difficulties that later resulted in inefficient waste management as well as environmental pollution.

CHENGDU: DELAYED DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCIAL RESTRICTIONS As previously indicated, sanitary institutionalization and lawmaking in Chengdu developed in patterns that differed quite significantly from China’s eastern metropolises. Wang states that although Chengdu was not free from a certain degree of westernization and Western ideals of urban development shaped local politics and urban life during the Late Qing and Republican eras, it was still “much more traditional than port cities” in almost every way and “much more typical” of the average Chinese urban everyday life. General political transformation and nationstate building in China—including the Self- strenghthening Movement (1861–1895), the Late Qing Reform period (1901– 1911), the Republican Revolution (1911–1912), the Warlord Era (1916–1928), and the Nationalist take of power (1927) was in fact more influential on Chengdu’s early- to mid-twentieth century urban and sanitary administration than modernization after Western models alone.110 As Wang describes, late nineteenth- century Chengdu did not have systematic public administration of any kind yet, as it mostly relied on the baojia system.111 It was not before the last decade of the Qing that new reforms brought change to urban administration during the final phase of the Self-strengthening Movement and the Late Qing Reform period—

110 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 1–2. 111 Ibid, 2. 59 this process also included the foundation of the Chengdu Police. In the context of the so-called “New Policies” (Xinzheng 新政) issued during the last decade of the Qing, all larger Chinese cities were institutionally and constitutionally reformed for the purpose of increased state power and in order “to change the relationship between the state and new citizenry”.112 According to Wang, it was during the Late Qing Reform period that Chengdu’s public sphere was first centrally controlled through a police. Basic objectives of early police control included the regulation of Chengdu’s chaotic traffic and street markets on the one hand and the beautification of the city on the other. Chengdu’s nineteenth century cityscape had been characterized by poor hygienic conditions, with open street dumps, slippery ground, water accumulations, excrements in the streets, and high dust levels as well as large rat populations and housepigs feeding on street waste. In reaction to these circumstances, the Late Qing hygienic reforms introduced street cleaning and waste removal to Chengdu and initiated an improvement of the sewer system as well as the local public toilet infrastructure (to keep people from doing their ‘business’ on the roadside).113 Wang finds that the public was not yet used to strict regulation when police control was first introduced to Chengdu, since all public affairs, including street cleaning, had previously been arranged rather informally by the baojia, guilds, and benevolent organizations, all of which had not interfered much in everyday social interaction. Police control, however, became “increasingly restrictive” the more it matured. After 1911 it expanded to almost permanent supervision of most public activities, imposing discipline on practically all areas of public life. It had begun to divide people in black and white categories of “good” and “bad” citizens, and aimed at removing the “bad” citizens from the public sphere or at least eliminating their “bad” habits completely.114 Although the changes that police control brought to everyday life were fundamental, the Late Qing period did not induce as much institutional transformation in Chengdu as it did in coastal cities. Comprehensive transformation of governance was not realized before the 1920s, when the most fundamental basic structures of urban administration were first established—such as the City Government Office (Shizheng gongsuo 市政公所, founded in 1921 after the model of Beijing’s municipal government) and its adjacent

112 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 47 113 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 133–137. 114 Ibid., 147–148. 60 administrative departments—, along with a legal framework for the execution of administrative work. This ‘delay’ was caused partly by the aforementioned dominance of pre-modern administrative structures and partly by an entirely disrupted balance of political power during the warlord period.115 As Stapleton points out, Chengdu siginifcantly lagged behind the modernization process of the large coastal cities, and local elite groups, especially the influential local military, began to push for an institutionalization of the urban administrative system. They hoped to make Chengdu into a provincial role model that represented the strength of provincial capitals and their ability to uphold national modernization and progress. Urban administration was widely understood as a route towards a future-oriented society, and young officials saw the basis of national reconstruction in urban reform.116 New administrative guidelines included the regulation of public disorder, the establishment of morality, the elimination of criminal activities, opium addiction and prostitution, aid for the poor, the beautification of the city, street cleaning, street lights, fire control, and flood relief. Despite this top-down approach, public resistance against these reforms was never strong, not only because they were very authoritarian but also because all societal actors except certain local elites were excluded from participation in urban political affairs. 117 Besides this structural one-dimensionality, the nationalist urban administration system suffered from various other weaknesses that affected provincial urban development and public health administration: it was underfinanced and understaffed and lacked a firm legal basis as well as cooperation between different administrative offices.118 As Liu states, the severe financial restrictions ultimately rendered the Chengdu government unable to establish a public health system that “reached to the roots of society” (shenru dao jiceng shehui de guanli zhidu 深入到基层社会的管理制度) and induced structural change in people’s everyday behavior—instead, the entire public health system remained largely superficial.119 This also showed in the organization of waste management: although a Public Health Agency (Weisheng shu 卫生署, more or less equivalent in its purpose to Shanghai’s Weisheng ju) existed, waste collection and street cleaning in Late Republican Chengdu was not coordinated by

115 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 187. 116 Ibid., 218–220, 230–232. 117 Ibid., 235–236, 249, 253–254. 118 Zhang, “Minguo shiqi guoren dui gonggong weisheng jianshe de renshi,” 51. 119 Liu, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan,” 141. 61 the municipality but by the Chengdu Police (now called Police Department of the Provincial Capital, or Shenghui jingcha ju 省会警察局). During the Mid- to Late Republican period, Chengdu’s Police Department suffered from severe underfinancing and was hardly able to even pay its cleansing staff enough to sustain their lives, let alone provide them with proper cleaning utensils. In general, the Police was almost unable to handle the whole city’s waste accumulations successfully.120 But despite all of these difficulties, Chengdu did not face the intense problems of overcomplexity and East–West dichotomies that Shanghai struggled with. Because of the fact that urban planning in Chengdu lagged behind the east coast— not only in terms of institutional modernization but also technological and infrastructural development—the most obvious examples being, for example, Chengdu’s sparse provision of electricity, sewer systems, running water, or motorized transport. In general Chengdu’s urban life was much simpler and therefore easier to oversee and administer than Shanghai’s. As Stapleton suggests, the crucial difference between the challenges of public administration in Chengdu and Shanghai was not the structural organization or level of efficiency but the speed of development and all actors’ ability to adjust to regulated urban life. While Shanghai’s administrative sector(s) evolved slowly and gradually, the introduction of reforms in Chengdu was so abrupt that residents were forced to adapt practically over night to strict regulations and an entirely new way of life.121

1.3. Regulating Urban Sanitation and Waste Removal, 1900 to 1980s

This section investigates the formation of legal baselines for urban and environmental sanitation in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. The development of the previously described institutional framework for waste management and its embedding in a legal fundament during the Late Qing and Republican periods proceeded at very different speeds: on the Chinese mainland, several phases of substantial transformation took place with each change of government, especially during the 1930s, 1950s, and 1980s. In Hong Kong, the most fundamental adjustments were made around the turn of the century, and then

120 Ibid., 142. 121 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 187. 62 again in the late 1970s and 1980s. Due to the three cities’ different political backgrounds, the initial configuration of local institutional and legal frameworks and the problems that derived from them show a broad variation of challenges that had to be overcome. This was a complex and time-consuming process: in all three cases, the confrontation with weaknesses in sanitary legislation lasted for decades, which each generation of new lawmakers and administrators inheriting major unsolved problems from their predecessors.

1.3.1. Decontaminating the Cities: Waste Management Regulations before 1949

SHANGHAI: A SCENE OF DIFFERENT STANDARDS

In the present comparison, Shanghai was the city that faced the most challenges establishing sanitary legislation during the Late Qing and Republican periods. Forming three separate settlements in one, Shanghai’s municipalities were equally hesitant to co-operate with regard to sanitary concerns, although all of them struggled with sanitary management in general and with waste management in particular. This section focuses on weaknesses of the three different legal frameworks in Shanghai, which were partly responsible for this struggle, as well as on inconsistencies in the implementation of sanitary law that resulted in a poor waste management performance. Jackson determines one of the most crucial underlying problems of this situation, which was the lack of cross-municipal cooperation: while multi-dimensional boundaries existed between the municipalities and their administrative affairs, most public health concerns effectively extended beyond those boundaries. As Jackson points out, these included both geographical borders (for example, borders between administrative districts) as well as political borders (for example, areas and scopes of administrative and financial responsibility). Due to these boundaries, local bureaucrats often found themselves unable to perform certain tasks or reach certain targets whenever the tasks involved exceeded municipal territory. Fundamental skepticism towards the other two municipalities repetitively led to their common failure to jointly and uniformly promote systematic advancements in public health development. Nevertheless, some division of work did exist, even if only to a limited extent. For example, the International Settlement and French Concession mutually granted each other’s citizens access to various sanitary services, especially in the healthcare sector. Symptomatically, however, 63 cooperation between the foreign municipalities and Shanghai’s Chinese government was virtually non-existent before 1926, due to the absence of Chinese sanitary institutions. Later, after the establishment of the respective authorities, some arrangements took place in areas such as public health inspection and sanitary licensing for local businesses, but generally, all parties involved experienced these co-operations as a huge effort.122

THE INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT: INEFFICIENCIES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF REGULATIONS

As Jackson exemplifies, boundaries between the three municipalities were not only political; budgetary restrictions and legal shortcomings also compromised their ability to develop a cross-border public health system with uniform standards. In the International Settlement basic sanitary law had existed since the earliest days of foreign administration in Shanghai but it was never systematically reformed as long as the concessions existed. The main reason for its reform inertia was the process of lawmaking itself, as the unbalanced distribution of legislative power in the Shanghai Municiap Council often inhibited the enactment of new regulations: decisions to support new laws always required the vote of a multitude of ratepayers but antagonizing interests and a growing divide between foreign and Chinese council members frequently resulted in no decision at all. Instead, where absolutely necessary, already existing regulations were simply extended by byelaws, which were much easier to ratify. This, however, led to fragmentation of the actual laws and did not contribute to their reformulation. Jackson asserts that these restrictions tied down the progression of the public health sector despite advancements in technological development in the International Settlement. She also identifies this kind of reform inertia as a structural weakness of the semi- colonial system itself. Compared with the legislative capacities and flexibility of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo), the Shanghai Municipal Council appears like a rigid apparatus. Shanghai’s technologically well-developed International Settlement was struggling so much with outdated legal structures that its public health legislation could never be fully adapted to the twentieth century standards that its foreign elites knew from Europe or Northern

122 Jackson, Isabella, Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City, 165–166, 190, 194, 196. 64 America.123 The obvious weaknesses aside, neither ‘limited’ nor ‘full’ colonial legislative flexibility was ever a guarantee for ‘good’ decision-making—which is certainly not implied in Jackson’s statement. A higher degree of flexibility, however, certainly formed a basis for faster decision-making. Legislative rigidity also affected waste treatment. Ultimately, none of Shanghai’s three municipalities developed waste management regulations that exceeded the rudimentary basics of street cleaning and waste disposal. Yet they had come a long way: back in the mid-nineteenth century, waste treatment had been entirely unregulated and all waste had simply been thrown into the Huangpu river. Throughout the following decades, some rudimentary regulations evolved first in the International Settlement, which issued a ban on river dumping introduced and a daily waste collection service. In order to support daily collection, all householders were requested to deposit their waste by the river jetties in the early mornings, from where it was picked up by the Shanghai Municipal Council’s contractor. Later, when regular street cleaning service was introduced in the International Settlement, residents were spared the trip to the jetties but were instead advised to throw their garbage outside their houses instead for daily pick-up. Any disposal of waste at the wrong times or locations was punishable. This rudimentary regulation prevailed for several decades until 1908, when the Shanghai Municipal Council first took waste management one step further by distributing public waste bins thoughout the Settlement and banning street dumping. Apparently, however, the concept or purpose of regulations was not well understood at that time. Although households were informed of any change in sanitary regulations via public announcements and leaflets in both English and Chinese language that were distributed to each household, this did not keep many from ignoring the regulations almost notoriously; the existence of the new wastebins and the obligation to use them, for example, was neglected by most. Even in the 1920s it was still reported that a lot of waste ended up around the bins instead of inside them.124 In this author’s opinion, it is uncertain to what extent the average resident of the International Settlement was really informed about sanitary regulations. From today’s perspective, not only is it difficult to determine whether such information was distributed equally among Chinese and

123 Ibid., 175. 124 “Advertisement—Notice,” North China Herald, 12 July, 1856, 198; “Report of Watch Committee,” North China Herald, 17 December, 1874, 594; SMA, U1-3-788. 65 foreign residents but there is also a lack of historical records that allows for a reliable reconstruction of how well regulations were understood or how seriously they were taken by citizens. After all, because other areas of public health were much more prominently regulated and propagated than waste management—such as, for example, regulations and measures concerning vaccinations, drinking water hygiene and the sanitation of dwellings—, it is questionable whether the public actually paid much attention to the seemingly less important waste management regulations. These regulations only concerned householders very marginally in their daily routine anyways, namely only when they were just about to discard something. And most of the time they were doing that, nobody was likely to be actively observing them. As far as can be traced back, the regulations also did not do much to enhance people’s actual understanding about the properties of waste in the household and why it should be treated in certain ways. They did not specify on any form of discrimination between ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ forms of waste treatment before collection, nor did they point out any environmental concerns. Their only aim was to facilitate waste collection and raise citizens’ awareness for the goal of creating a clean urban sphere as well as the promotion of disease prevention. The most important reason to keep the streets clean of waste for most of the day was to prevent rats from feeding on it, since the control of rat breeding was crucial with regard to the omnipresent risk of a plague epidemic.125 It must be pointed out here that evidence on the exact content and wording of the abovementioned regulations is sparse, thus only approximate statements can be made. Only a few related records on this kind of regulations are preserved at the Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA), and additional comprehensive newspaper research has only resulted in fragmented additional information. The lack of sources, however, is probably also connected to the aforementioned observation that public health, and waste management in particular, remained underregulated in general until the end of foreign administration in Shanghai. As chapter 3.2 will show, the International Settlement’s reluctance to reform and further differentiate waste management regulations resulted in substantial problems with waste pollution which were difficult to mitigate without the support of a solid legal framework. It is further important to mention that, the main focus of the Shanghai Municipal Council’s waste management strategy was

125 “Anti-plague Measures,” North China Herald, 11 November, 1910, 339. 66 centered on the supervision and execution of sanitary work and not on legislation, which was another reason why regulations were never systematically reformed. All responsibility for sanitary control was with the Council’s Superintendent of Cleanliness who observed waste collection as well as the sanitation of the Settlement’s dumping sites but was never involved with lawmaking himself. His daily interventions depended from his personal judgement and practical experience to a greater extent than from the existing legislative framework. Thus, also on this practical level, eventually, the institutional foundations of waste management remained so rough and sketchy so that even the Committee of Public Works itself described the entire approach as “too crude and primitive to be regarded as entirely satisfactory” in a self-critical statement of 1920.126

THE FRENCH CONCESSION: STRUGGLING WITH PUBLIC RESISTANCE In the French Concession, waste management was regulated and organized quite differently than in the International Settlement. Most notably, there was no uniform system in practice until the late 1920s. A municipal collection service existed long before that, but although local law required all household and human waste to be removed on a daily basis, this service was restricted to a few selected neighborhoods (the exact selection is not further specified in the sources consulted). Residents of other neighborhoods had to privately organize and finance their own waste removal, and they were also expected to sweep the streets in front of their own buildings. The coordination of street cleaning and waste collection was underregulated and varied from district to district: in some areas, the streets were cleaned after all waste had been removed while in others, the cleansing teams had to maneuver around accumulated heaps of household waste that were still awaiting collection. It was not before 1929—shortly after the Chinese municipality had first instroduced its own waste collection service—that the Administration Municipale began to expand street cleaning and collection services to all areas of the Concession in return for a special tax. This service legally tied all house owners to the obligatory purchase of standardized waste receptacles from the Administration Municipale, the installment of the same by their buildings, and the responsibility to make them accessible for daily collection. They were also obliged to permanently employ a watchman who would observe

126 SMA, U1-14-2813; U1-14-2806. 67 the receptacles and keep them clean, which caused inconveniences for dwelling holders despite the benefits of the new service. They also had to declare their support of these regulations to the Administration Municipale in written form if they wanted to avoid a fine. In order to ensure that all new orders were followed, the Administration Municipale enhanced police surveillance in areas that were especially prone to waste pollution and announced to be fining all house owners who failed to comply with the new regulations.127 It cannot be retraced, however, how rigorously such fines were actually imposed in reality. As of 1932—much later than in the International Settlement—, it was ultimately officially forbidden to dispose of any waste in the streets of the French Concession, except immediately before collection times. Residents were obliged to either keep their garbage indoors until they heard the collection vehicle’s bell ring, discard it directly into public receptacles, or into the bins provided by the house owner. Much in similarity to the International Settlement, residents were notified about all new regulations via the distribution of public notices as well as through announcements in local newspapers. Again, it is questionable whether both methods really reached the majority of the local population, especially the local Chinese citizens, many of whom were working class members with little or no ability to read. Although it is likely that some spoken word on new regulations was spread, the frequent behavior of the average French Concession resident, which is documented in various records at the Shanghai Municipal Archives, accounts for the inefficiency of this form of propaganda: indiscriminate of social status and racial or regional origin, residents of the French Concession—at least, so was it disapprovingly noted by the Administration Municipale in 1932— expressed a lack of awareness towards most waste management regulations as well as, supposedly, a certain indifference towards the general sanitary condition of their neighborhoods. Large heaps of household waste amassed in the streets at most times of the day regardless of the collection hours, although local householders were still seen sweeping street waste together voluntarily every now and then. Both Chinese and European residents tended to neglect the announced garbage collection times and placed their waste on the streets whenever they needed to. The Administration Municipale came to the conclusion that this kind of

127 SMA, U38-1-2711; U38-4-3268; U38-1-997. 68 behavior could only be corrected more police surveillance. 128 Surveillance, however, was rather ineffective as well, as the French Police was not legally authorized to deal with any kind of sanitary delict efficiently: its only means of intervention was to call out and fine offenders but such fines only ever applied if police officers directly observed a violation that was happening right in front of their eyes. In fact, a lot of sanitary offenses took place behind the Police’s back. Whenever a fine applied, it was quite high with 50 dollars to be paid by the house owner each time a violation of sanitary regulations was observed on his premise.129 But again, due to the limited state of records, it is impossible to reconstruct how regularly offenders were actually fined. Over the years, a rising dissatisfaction with the Administration Municipale’s general performance in waste removal developed among local residents, which proves that they actually did care about the sanitary condition of their neighborhoods, and felt that it was the French Municipality’s responsibility to provide the necessary service. In respsonse to their demands, waste collection service was ‘upgraded’ to from street collection house-to-house collection in 1935 in return for a raise in rental tax at the expense of all house owners, which was added to the aforementioned tax on waste collection that already existed. While the AM was confident that house-to-house collection would alleviate some of the sanitary problems connected to waste pollution, some members expressed their concern that landlords might pass on the financial burden caused by the new tax to their tenants and thus create unfavorable hardship for lower-income residents. Their concern was justified: the new tax fell into a time when the on-going Chinese civil war and refugee crisis had already seriously affected Shanghai’s general economic prosperity. Rising unemployment rates and skyrocketing prices and rents began to endanger the living conditions and even the livelihoods of many, especially Chinese working class members. For them, the raised tax was a high price to pay in return for clean pavements.130

THE CHINESE MUNICIPALITY: DEVELOPMENTAL RESTRICTIONS The Chinese municipality of Shanghai, as has been discussed in the previous section, developed its own public health sector relatively late, but as concerns the

128 Cf. SMA, U38-1-947; U38-1-948. 129 Cf. SMA, U38-1-948. 130 Ibid. 69 establishment of waste management regulations, the example of the International Settlement and, especially, the French Concession show that Shanghai’s foreign districts struggled with setting satisfactory standards as well. Nevertheless, the Chinese municipality oriented many of its advancements in sanitary lawmaking at the steps previously taken by the foreign municipalities. Although comprehensive sanitary institution building and construction of the necessary infrastructure did not take place before the late 1920s, the most crucial public health services and some related regulatory framework certainly existed before. These also included basic waste management and street cleaning regulations: according to Peng, in the eyes of Chinese sanitary officials, street cleaning was at the “very core of sanitary management (weisheng guanli zhi zhongxin 卫生管理之重心)” and also constituted “a testing ground for urban civilization (chengshi wenming de chuangkou 城市文明的窗口)”, as it concerned not only the prevention of disease and contamination that possibly derived from waste pollution but also the improvement of the entire city’s appearance, which was symbolic of the expression of hygienic modernity. Waste management thus received a lot of attention in public health administration; perhaps more than in the foreign districts. The first corresponding regulations were announced in June 1910; these regulations manifested regular street cleaning and waste transport but did not specifically designate its organization. In the beginning, the street cleaning process was so random that it could only be upkept through constant intervention by the police. Follow-up regulations structured the street cleaning process to a certain extent, but they remained very basic: they mainly referred to collection routes and time schedules, the maintenance of public waste bins, and backup rounds in case some waste was left behind.131 These earlier laws specifically addressed the street cleaning units and their work methods while the general public remained unconcerned. This changed in June 1922, however, when a new law entitled “Waste Penalty Regulation (Laji chufa zhuanze 垃圾处罚专则)” was issued with the aim to coordinate waste collection more efficiently. Householders were hence obliged to place their waste outside for collection at exactly designated times instead of at any time they liked, which had been the previous practice. Householders who did not comply with the schedule had to expect a fine between 1 jiao and 5 yuan. This law was followed by another regulation entitled

131 Peng, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming, 63–64. 70 “Ban on waste dumping and accumulation of residues in public as well as any other unsanitary or traffic obstructing behavior (Jinzhi yantu qingdao laji duiji wuliao yiji yiqie youhai weisheng bing fang’ai jiaotong zhi xingwei 禁止沿途倾倒垃圾堆积物料以及一切有害卫生并妨碍交通之行为)”, which was issued to further support the efficiency of street cleaning.132 But in total, the Chinese municipality’s general repertoire of legal arrangements conerning waste management remained very low throughout the entire Republican period—even lower than in the foreign districts. Liu states that the issued laws, besides being very rudimentary, also lacked precision, which resulted in uncertainties concerning the correct fulfillment of prescribed tasks and, consequently, rather inefficient street cleaning. But it was not only the street cleaning sector that was deficient. According to Liu, the Chinese municipality’s entire sanitary system had crucial shortcomings as sanitary law did not penetrate in the expected way; sanitary management in its various forms was most often not executed according to the existing legal norms. Standards of cleanliness and sanitary infrastructure were distributed unequally throughout the Chinese-administered districts, with shantytowns being in the worst sanitary condition. These quarters were characterized by an especially polluted urban environment, waste accumulations, and smelly water channels. They often had no running water, underground sewers, or public waste bins. Their already unfavorable sanitary circumstances quickly worsened during Shanghai’s refugee crisis of the 1930s, which turned them, in Liu’s words, into “a horrible sight (canburendu 惨不忍睹)”: all impurities being removed only unregularly, they were overflowing with excrements, waste, animal cadavers and sometimes even the bodies of deceased babies that had been abandoned in the open.133 Given the scope of shantytowns in Republican Shanghai, this is a vivid example of the discrepancy in sanitary development between Shanghai’s more developed and underdeveloped districts. If, according to the observations noted previously, the International Settlement and French Concession can be described as at least moderately waste polluted during the Republican period, then substantial parts of the Chinese-administered districts have to be regarded as seriously polluted during this time. But despite these severe circumstances, regulations were never significantly reformed

132 Ibid., 64. 133 Liu, Jindai Shanghai chengshi huanjing weisheng guanli chutan, 91–92. 71 throughout the entire 1910s to 1930s; even the turn towards a more systematic sanitary institutionalization of the late 1920s apparently had no significant positive influence on the existing waste management practice and its regulatory framework. More substantial structural change took place only after the end of the Second World War, when the end of hostilities liberated some administrative and financial capacities for sanitary development. It has to be noted that by that time, the era of both foreign administration and Japanese occupation (1937–1945) had ended, which constituted an additional impetus to improve public administration, now under Chinese jurisdiction only. During the first years that followed the war, however, the already poor performance in waste collection was exacerbated even further: as the number of street cleaners had shrunk by a third, the unchanged workload became much harder for the workers remaining in service, with the result that their commitment was compromised. Since the Chinese Municipality was unable to immediately finance the required backup in workforce, new postwar regulations addressed the garbage collectors’ work ethics instead and making them work harder: a supervisor was appointed to each cleansing sector who was obliged to deliver a detailed daily report of the work accomplished under his supervision and call out each single worker’s individual performance at the end of a workday. All cleansing workers needed to keep a notebook in which they had to document their daily task fulfillment and time of accomplishment which was counterchecked on a monthly basis by one of the Weisheng ju’s higher- ranking officers.134 With regard to the financial difficulties that Chinese municipal governments faced immediately after the war, these measures were not necessarily an act of oppressive reglementation; it can also be assumed that they were the only way in which, despite the lack of workforce, a minimum of street sanitation could be effectively achieved. Further new regulations of the postwar years concerned the general improvement of urban sanitary standards, this time with specific regard to the public and the average population’s dumping habits. For this purpose, the Weisheng ju co-operated with the Police Department, which specially assigned sanitary police officers (weisheng jingcha 卫生警察) as superintendents of cleanliness. These superintendents had the mandate to observe, report and punish all kinds of pollution in the public sphere, including spitting, doing one’s ‘private

134 Ibid., 85, 89. 72 business’ in the streets, unlawful disposal of waste water, random waste dumping, abandoning dead bodies in the public sphere, causing bad smells, or purposefully ignoring public waste bins.135 In order to further raise the quality of cleansing work, a number of new regulations (banfa 办法) were issued in 1946. The Weisheng ju also ordered a cleansing competition (qingjie jingsai 情结竞赛), district against district, with adjacent regulations (Qingjie jingsai jiancha banfa 情结竞赛检查办法): the last week of each calendar month was now designated especially to street cleaning. In a joint co-operation between the District Public Health Offices (Weisheng chu 卫生处), the District Public Administration Offices (Minzheng chu 民政处), and the now unified Shanghai Police, all streets were inspected and categorized according to their level of cleanliness, the result being reported once per month in local newspapers. Turning public was a major new strategy to gain people’s attention: during this phase, noteable achievements made by the street cleaning personnel were publicly encouraged by the mayor himself, while street cleaners were individually punished when failing to provide cleanliness. Another regulation issued around the same time was the “Municipal regulation on waste disposal” (Shanghai shi laji qingdao banfa 上海市垃圾倾倒办法), which also addressed the public and aimed for more efficiency in the street cleaning process. According to this regulation, the waste collection vehicles could now pass all streets of any given district only once per day at a scheduled time instead of the previous two to several times. Residents were obliged to coordinate their habits with the new schedule: any person who missed taking out their trash at the time of pickup and instead discarded it randomly on the street was sentenced to an unusually severe punishment of several months of prison or a high fine of up to 30 yuan. As Liu has found, such punishment applied when someone was caught in the act repetitively rather than on first occasion, but in the eye of the author of this thesis, the degree of relentlessness of this sanction gives reason to doubt whether it was actually imposed very often.136

HONG KONG: EARLY FIRST STANDARDS, LATE ADVANCEMENTS In Hong Kong, the first basic public health regulations were introduced by the Legislative Council shortly after the foundation of the City of Victoria in 1844.

135 Ibid. 136 Ibid., 89–90. 73 Waste dumping onto the streets or into drains was prohibited through the “Good Order and Cleanliness Ordinance” of the same year. It was also forbidden to accumulate waste in private properties and to scavenge any deposited waste in the public sphere, such as waste in dust containers, waste collection vehicles, or any area designated as a landfill or “refuse depot”, as it was often practiced by the local poor. Violations against these regulations—at least on paper—were supposed to be fined with a fee “not exceeding two hundred dollars”.137 Similarly as in the foreign districts of Shanghai, these regulations expressed the goal to establish European-standard sanitary conditions on colonial territory from the very beginning. At the same time, the anti-scavenging paragraph displays a discriminative connotation against the native Chinese. Even if the main concern of these early regulations was health related and stood in close contact with disease prevention, it cannot be excluded that this paragraph was, perhaps, aimfully targeted against certain groups of the local population, attacking the lowest strata of the urban poor whose livelihoods depended on food scraps and the sale of valuables retrieved from city waste. Tsang, however, asserts that “Hong Kong did not have laws that discriminated against the Chinese”.138 With regard to the above case which may not have been the only one, ‘explicitly or actively discriminated’ may have been a more precise way to put it, which is probably what Tsang’s statement really implies; in another publication, he states that discrimination in Hong Kong legislation did occur in, most often in the form of “passive discrimination, such as excluding the Chinese from residing in the Peak district, rather than active measures that interfered with the lives of the ordinary Chinese”.139 The above case, however, which may be regarded as an example of relatively explicit discrimination, is an example of the fact that the British colonialists tended to regard the Chinese urban poor as potential or de facto polluters of the urban sphere from the very beginning, and kept doing so for decades. The early sanitary laws were not altered much at all before the formation of the aforementioned Sanitary Board, which extended the regulation catalogue by several aspects that were considered to be crucial for the improvement of the

137 “Ordinance No. 5 of 1844: Good Order and Cleanliness;” “Summary Offences Ordinance No. 7 of 1845: An Ordinance to make Provision for the Preservation of Good Order and Cleanliness and the Prevention of nuisances,” 26th December, 1845, in The Ordinances of Hongkong, 1844–1923, 24. 138 Tsang, Steve, Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the Handover to China, 1862–1997, 7. 139 Tsang, Steve, “Government and Politics in Hong Kong: A Colonial Paradox,” 66. 74 urban sanitary condition: these included regulations concerning the construction, ventilation, and maintenance of private drains (which, as was observed, carried large amounts of kitchen waste and sewage); the installation of dust bins in private premises; the regular collection of waste and night soil; and the protection of public water supply and the harbor from waste pollution.140 The Board also listed up various punishable conditions that counted as a violation against sanitary law in both public and private premises, such as clogged drains and ventilation facilities, polluted streets, water channels, water tanks, and water reservoirs, animal stables, heavily contaminated urinals and cess pools, any unchannelled or stagnant water and sewage, any accumulated household waste, and “any act, omission, or thing which is, or may be dangerous to life, or injurious to health or property”, especially if connected with any of the above.141 In contrast to sanitary regulations in Shanghai, not only were these laws more precise but they also aimed at regulating waste treatment on public and private premises alike instead of focusing solely on waste removal from the public sphere. Still, the existence of these regulations does not prove that the average dwelling was actually built in a way that complied with them. The fact that “nuisance inspection”142 divisions were sent out to scoure through Hong Kong’s streets on a daily basis, inspecting and reporting on housing conditions even beyond the turn of the century, rather suggests that most, if not all of the problems pointed out in the regulations were probably omnipresent throughout the first decades of the colony. Beyond thorough sanitary inspection, it is not sure how well these laws were actually implemented: judging from the aforementioned police raids on dwelling sanitation and plague prevention, which lasted well into the 1910s, it can be assumed that it took the Hong Kong sanitary authorities several decades to establish standards that they deemed overall satisfactory. Achievements made in one part of town were necessarily transferable to others: for example, in working class districts

140 “Ordinance No. 23 of 1887: An Ordinance to Amend Ordinance No. 16 of 1887,”, 2181– 2183. 141 Ibid., 2184–2185. 142 The term “nuisance” frequently appears in nineteenth and early twentieth century Hong Kong government documents. Hamilton explains it as follows: “In the context of Victorian Britain, ‘nuisance’ described something much more than the current meaning of ‘pest’ or ‘irritant’. ‘Nuisance’ was a general term to describe anything noxious that would offend the senses, whether there were sight, sound, smell or touch. […] Given its graver meaning in the nineteenth century, the post of inspector of nuisances was more important thatn might be regarded today from its title. Inspectors of nuisances existed throughout the British Empire and also in Shanghai. […] the term was used until 1906” (Hamilton, Sheilah E., Watching over Hong Kong: Private Policing 1841– 1941, 47.) 75 such as Tai Ping Shan on Hong Kong Island, waste removal went less smoothly than in wealthier areas of the city. Even Victoria Peak, although one of the wealthiest districts, was not connected to regular waste collection service until the end of the nineteenth century because of its remote location; residents had to take their household waste and night soil down to town or hire a private collector at their own costs, which resulted in many ignoring this impractical responsibility altogether and dumping their accumulated waste on the hillside illegally.143 The colonial authorities noticed this and began to pay special attention to kitchen sewage, as it was prone to flow downhill into local streams and, especially, Pok Fu Lam water reservoir, which at that time formed Hong Kong’s most important freshwater supply. Freshwater quality in Hong Kong was especially sensitive to environmental influence because of a general scarcity of water resources in the area. Any spilled sewage alarmed the sanitary authorities immediately, as it could easily form a serious threat of bacterial contamination in the leveled areas downhill where surface water concentrated.144 The Hong Kong government’s concern for these circumstances is displayed in the so-called “Chadwick Report”, a detailed description of Hong Kong’s sanitary conditions around the turn of the century, compiled by Osbert Chadwick (1844–1913), an engineer and sanitation expert of the British Civil Engineers’ Society, in 1902. Chadwick was employed by the Colonial Office in London and sent to Hong Kong to investigate its sanitary conditions, as it was reported that they were harmful to the health of British soldiers. According to Ip, Hong Kong became a “testing ground” for public health administration in the British Empire as it was the first location where Chadwick’s instructions were meticulously followed—after the devastating plague outbreak of 1894, the colonial government took no more chances.145 Chadwick’s instructions were highly influential on the formation of the Sanitary Board and subsequent advancements in sanitary law and infrastructure.146 As becomes apparent from the previous paragraphs, all regulations displayed above were mid- to late nineteenth and early twentieth century laws. This is not a

143 “Sanitary Reports (Hongkong): Sanitation—Dry Earth System of Conservancy.” Cf. also Wordie, Jason, Streets: Exploring Hong Kong Island, 294–295. 144 Cf. Rose, John, “Hong Kong’s Water-Supply Problem and China’s Contribution to Its Solution;” Water Supplies Department, “Pok Fu Lam Reservoir.” 145 Ip, Iam-Chong, “Welfare Good or Colonial Citizenship: A Case Study of Early Resettlement Housing,” 34–36; Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 65. 146 “Preliminary Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hongkong [“Chadwick Report”],” The Hongkong Government Gazette, April 11 (1902), 557–592. 76 coincidence, as these regulations, with few alterings, formed exactly the legal framework that constituted waste management in Hong Kong until the Second World War and even a few years beyond. As Lau states, most laws originally issued by the Sanitary Board (which include regulations on waste management) were not altered at until the reformation of sanitary administration in the Urban Council in 1935, and even after that, legislative transformation was slow. All existing laws concerning waste management that existed in the early 1930s were already included either in the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 (which was itself only a derivative of the Public Health Ordinance of 1887), the Summary Offences Ordinance of 1845 (which had not been reformed even once since its initial issuing), and the Water Works Ordinance of 1903.147 The fact that these laws were not reformed suggests that the sanitary standard they prescribed was at least minimally statisfactory, and that the strict sanitary surveillance, which had been promoted drastically since the plague outbreak of 1894, was effective. But as has been indicated already in the previous section, the longevity of these laws was also at least partially due to the fact that the Sanitary Board had so little legislative power. After the problem of legislative autonomy was solved with the foundation of the Urban Council, the public health authorities set on to systematically restructure and improve the public health sector through the formation of various new select committees. The new Council’s initial focus, however, was centered on the establishment of the Sanitary and Medical Departments, and on much more general administrative restructuring: around the same time, in 1932, Britain introduced a unified colonial administrative service throughout the Empire, a development that strongly influenced the formation of the Urban Council and concentrated a lot of administrative attention and workpower on the restructuring process. Larger reformations of sanitary law were therefore not introduced to Hong Kong until after the Second World War.148

CHENGDU: GEOGRAPHICAL CHALLENGES AND FINANCIAL RESTRICTIONS Between the early and the mid-twentieth century, Chengdu underwent two phases of substantial sanitary reformation and lawmaking, one during the aforementioned “New Policies” period of the Late Qing era and one during the 1930s and 1940s (especially in the context of the reform campaigns conducted in the course of the

147 Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 71. 148 Ibid., 76–77; Tsang, Governing Hong Kong, 47. 77 New Life movement (Xin shenghuo yundong 新生活运动, cf. chapter 2.2.3), with relatively little legislative transformation happening in-between these two phases. As primary sources on the original terms of Late Qing and Republican waste management regulations in Chengdu are very sparse, it is impossible to present a very detailed portrait of legal sanitary development in Chengdu at this point. However, a juxtaposition of previous discoveries and arguments made by other scholars can provide a first overview. Sanitary regulation in Chengdu originated in the context of the New Policies and the foundation of the Chengdu Police in the early 1900s. Various new laws were issued that aimed at the beautification of the public sphere and the establishment of physical and aesthetic order. In the course of these regulations, the city’s overall appearance was consecutively transformed to enable public health administration: streets were widened and cleared from garbage, public markets were set up in new designated areas were they could be more effectively controlled, and beggars were made to leave. As Stapleton states, these efforts soon granted Chengdu a reputation as China’s cleanest city, at least among foreign visitors.149 Besides street waste removal, human waste (night soil) pollution was tackled as well, with the first generalized standards set for public toilets, which hence were regularly controlled by the Police. During the Late Qing and Republican periods, visitors of Chengdu described lavatories as practically ubiquitous in the city. Wang sees a direct connection of lavatory density to the abundance of teahouses, where endless amounts of hot water were consumed during daily business and leisure hours. Teahouses often had their own bathrooms but public lavatories were usually installed “within walking distance from the teahouses” for the teahouse guests’ convenience. The number of both public toilets and teahouses was probably over a thousand (about as many as Chengdu had streets within its city walls) with each of them serving about 400 people on average. Wang reports that during the New Policies era, teahouses were among the first locations that were officially acknowledged as seriously dirty: they were not cleaned up regularly, their water was contaminated with bacteria and their interiors infested with “vermin, debris, and bad smells”. Early public health regulations also aimed at the sanitization of the teahouses themselves, where hygienic conditions were supposedly almost equally bad. Due to their social

149 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 144, 150. 78 function as places of encounter for many unregulated leisure activities, legal and illegal business, and critical political debate, teahouses were places of general disorder in the eyes of late Qing and Republican Chengdu officials. As vibrant spaces of social interaction, teahouses became the focus of various ‘urban civilization’ campaigns during the New Policies and Republican periods and served as places in which the municipal government announced and promoted its program to improve the city’s general image, appearance, hygiene, and public order. Due to the fact that teahouses were so enormously popular, however, the municipal government and police often had to compromise when announcing or enforcing regulations, in order to not disrupt this important social space and all the business undertaken there too much. Regulations that targeted their hygienic state were thus only limitedly efficient. So were regulations on toilet hygiene— according to Stapleton, they did not improve the condition of lavatories very much.150 Another important area of public health legislation that was related to waste management was water quality control, since Chengdu had a serious shortage of good quality drinking water. Local wells tasted bitter and river water within the city was often contaminated. Therefore, large amounts of water had to be brought into the city from outside sources. The quality of this water was therefore a sensitive issue, and it was expensive. Teahouses played a crucial role in water management as they could afford the largest deliveries, supporting their neighborhoods by selling boiled river water directly to the locals. But also the municipal government addressed the water problem by progressively initiating regular water quality controls for all wells in Chengdu, regular gutter cleanouts, the regulation of waste water disposal in manufactures and businesses, and by installing a pipeline system to irrigate river water from outside into the city.151 The scarcity of clean water remained a systemic problem throughout the entire first half of the twentieth century, and it was not a recent development: as Liu, among others, has pointed out, Chengdu had been known for serious waterborne diseases in the Sichuan area throughout history. During the Republican period it still faced fierce cholera epidemics with countless casualties, at least one roughly every ten years. By the 1930s, it was common knowledge that the disease was

150 Ibid., 136–137; Wang, Di, The Teahouse: Small Business, Everyday Culture, and Public Politics in Chengdu, 1900–1950, 286, 50–52, 253. 151 Wang, The Teahouse, 18; Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 137–138. 79 caused by impure water. The problem was found to originate mostly in the wells but also the arms of the local Jinjiang 锦江 river (locally divided into two arms called Fuhe 府河 and Nanhe 南河, which are also uniformly referred to as Funanhe 府南河), both of which became extremely polluted during the first decades of the twentieth century. This pollution was partly caused by Chengdu’s countless public toilets, many of which drained directly into the river, as well as by waste disposal at the banks. The wells were secondarily affected through soil and ground water contamination—some river water sampling conducted in 1943 revealed that literally all wells were infested with harmful bacteria. Especially in the summer heat, the water could become obnoxiously smelly. It is most likely that the increasing pollution around this time corresponded with Chengdu’s demographic development during the Republican period: already a larger city with a population of about 340,000 during the 1920s, its population literally exploded within the following thirty years, counting 450,000 inhabitants during the 1930s an 740,000 in 1949. This skyrocketing growth made Chengdu into one of China’s largest and fastest growing inland cities of the Republican era.152 With the water problem becoming increasingly harder to handle, water quality control became the core focus of sanitary legislation and infrastructural development during the late Republican period, yet Chengdu’s sanitary authorities of the time found themselves unable to manage these pressing problems to a satisfactory degree. In general, Chengdu’s Public Health Agency (Chengdu shi weisheng shiwusuo 成都市卫生事务所) was strictly determined to develop sanitary lawmaking and provide the necessary infrastructure to implement the laws, but according to Liu, it simply did not have the financial means. The Weisheng shiwusuo thus tried to initiate change in microsteps, for example, through the commission of a waterworks with an adjacent sewer system for running freshwater, built after the Shanghai and Tianjin models in 1946. However, again because of financial limitations, its scope was too small to be a real solution to the problem. The water pipelines did not actually reach the households but only a limited number of water stations (shoushuizhan 收水站) were people could purchase their shares of water. But since no regulation obliged the citizens to such water purchases, people continued to frequent the wells where water was free of

152 Liu, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan,” 141; Wang, The Teahouse, 4. 80 charge.153 Other regulations concerning freshwater quality actually addressed waste treatment as well: the “Chengdu cleansing movement implementation regulation (Chengdu shi qingjie yundong shishi fa 成都市清洁运动实施办法)” of 1939, for example, banned any washing of clothes or household goods, pouring out of waste water, installation of public toilets, and urinating or defecating near the location of wells. Other regulations set fixed standards for water purity and for the protection of wellwater, which included obligatory lids and daily waste cleanups around the wells. The problem with these regulations was that due to the fact that they had been issued during the New Life movement, they did not have permanent character, “could not create sufficient binding force” (bu keneng chansheng zugou yueshuli 不可能产生足够约束力), and mostly existed exclusively on paper. The understaffed and underfunded sanitary authorities found themselves unable to ensure proper implementation of these regulations, which resulted in people disrespecting them continuously, even during times of epidemics. The sanitary inspection division was almost entirely lacking the manpower and general capacities to accomplish its manifold tasks, being entirely preoccupied with the inspection of the food sector where hygiene counted the most. The only sanitary goal that was really accomplished during the Late Republican phase was the removal of waste dumps on the riverbanks and an improvement of the street cleaning routine (see chapter 2.2.2), especially in areas were thorough cleanups had long been planned but never initiated. The problem of river pollution, however, was not resolved during this time.154

1.3.2. National in Theory, Local in Practice: Implications for Waste Management in the People’s Republic’s Rule of Law and Public Administration

After the Communists’ takeover in Mainland China, the Nationalist institutional framework and set standards for public health were mostly adopted, while the Republican sanitary law was discontinued. Although the Communists were determined to continue where the Nationalists had left off and to solve major sanitary problems that the Republican government had been unable to overcome, they inherited many structural limitations that had already tied down Republican administration in general, and sanitary development in particular. At the same

153 Liu, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan,” 142. 154 Ibid., 142–143. 81 time, after decades of war and with an entire country to rebuild, the newly established People’s Republic faced pressing public health challenges that required immediate attention. 155 Inefficient organization of waste collection, removal, and disposal was only a minor problem among them; life-endangering conditions such as malnutrition, epidemics, and an undersupply of medical services, exacerbated by nation-wide poverty and destruction after the years of civil war, needed to be addressed first. Li Honghe describes that during the post- war years, sanitary conditions were almost equally bad in the cities and the countryside, but the shortcomings of the Republican public health system, which had now worsened to the extreme, were especially visible in the cities. Taking Nanjing as an example, he shows that the average dwellings were in the poorest condition, waste and excrements were scattered about on the roads, wells and waterways were badly polluted, sewer systems were underdeveloped and run- down, and cluttered manholes and water channels served as the usual replacement for waste bins.156 Much like in Republican Chengdu, water contamination was the most worrisome problem in most cities and the countryside, with a high correlation between mortality rates and waterborne infections. In order to ease people’s suffering and prevent epidemics, the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) national public health agenda focused especially on the fast development of nationwide individual healthcare and drinking water control, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. New national regulations on water safety were thus among the first public health regulations that were issued during the mid- to late 1950s. They included new norms for water quality, the opening up of new drinking water sources, and new measures to protect drinking water from sources of contamination such as waste and feces. In the bigger cities, this was realized through the construction or improvement of waterworks and adjacent systems of water distribution, but the scope of transformation depended on the already existing local infrastructure. In areas where Republican public health infrastructure was already relatively well developed, like in Shanghai, this process was much easier than in others. But even in the biggest cities, waste contamination caused major throwbacks, not only to water purification but also to sanitation in general because waste collection systems had been severely disrupted during the war years, as had most other

155 Cf., for example, Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague, 7. 156 Li, Jianguo chuqi de chengshi gonggong weisheng zhili shulun, 109–110. 82 public health services.157 Overall, the rebuilding of the national public health sector to and beyond pre-war standards was slow. The delays can be explained through the fact that during the early years of the People’s Republic, the communist government was preoccupied with the on-going process of “liberation”, which was only officially completed in 1957.158 In its aftermath, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) overshadowed the building of a stable state bureaucracy, undermined the legal system, and tied officials’ attention to the political. In addition, although the Communists were able to adopt a substantial part of the Republican institutional framework for public administration, they still had to restructure the entire state and adapt the Republican institutional and legal heritage to the new socialist system. While various Republican institutions could be adapted to the communist system of state administration rather easily, the PRC’s legal system developed in a way that significantly distinguished it from a rule of law as it is widely understood in Western nation states today, which the Nationalist government also strived to establish. Victor H. Li explains the characteristics of the general approach to law in Revolutionary China: during the Revolutionary period, national law split into what Li calls the “external” versus the “internal” model of law. The “external” model refers to a fixed set of rules that guides decision-making and is so complex that it requires trained experts (studied lawyers, judges, specially educated state administrators, etc.) for its interpretation and implementation and forms the typical basis of a constitutional state. The “internal” model, in turn, is an entirely informal approach to law that is oriented at “socially accepted values and norms”, which are established in processes of experiment and education. It can overlay and contradict with, or even disable the external model due to its inherent, practice-oriented flexibility. Its development is fluid and susceptible to open interpretation, changes of zeitgeist, or ideological superstructures.159 Generally, as Li states, the application of the external model allows for “a clear and rationalized system of government and administration” and helps create a centralized concentration of power that forms a legal framework for nation building. In Revolutionary China, this model was applied to create a legal framework for the

157 Ibid., 110–111, 113–114. 158 Cf. Dikötter, Frank, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945– 57. 159 Li, Victor H., “The Role of Law in Communist China,” 72–73. 83 new socialist state on the national level, and resulted in the formulation of the national constitution of 1954. It was, however, not the dominant model of law in China, but merely created a referential outer framework for the much more important internal model, which actually shaped the implementation of law and adjacent policies on the local level. The internal model, which allows for the law to be locally interpreted, had the advantage of great simplicity: laws developed almost organically directly where they needed to be applied. They could easily be grasped by everyone without the need of specialists and were enforced through community involvement instead of legal courts. Keeping bureaucratic processes as basic as possible, the main corrective element was social pressure instead of fear of government punishment. Li describes that in Revolutionary China, the “external model” was almost exclusively applied for the control of the most important, nation-wide matters, while everything else was regulated locally according to the “internal model” principles. For a country as vast and diverse as China, this approach was helpfully pragmatic. It also had the positive side effect of empowering the public to actively contribute to nation building, which, in the communist logic, counterbalanced “the isolation and abuses of power by the traditional and Nationalist power-holders”.160 During its early development, the “external model” was applied to organization and operation of government, the setting of national policies and norms, land reform, and the transformation of former Guomindang (GMD) institutions into communist ones. The “internal model” was practiced simultaneously on the local and regional level, and applied especially wherever there was no national regulation available (yet). This led to frequent processes of transformation of local regulations over time as well as to a great variation in the interpretation of law between different areas. Informality and flexibility of the law was a value held high by the communist government, who wanted the law to be easily understandable and adoptable by the masses. On the flip side, these characteristics led to an overelasticity of the law on the local level, even if it was fixed in written form, and cadres felt encouraged to stretch written law until it fit the local circumstances better.161 During the first decades of the PRC, public health administration and education roughly followed “external” national guidelines but was mainly organized in

160 Ibid., 74–75. 161 Ibid., 76–77, 80–82. 84 “internal” patterns of lawmaking on the local level, meaning that it followed national regulations to a lesser degree than during the Late Qing and Republican periods, which had been characterized by clearer and more uniform sanitary development goals. In addition, in Mao’s China written law did not have the same significance as political campaigns and propaganda, which, much like the “internal model” of law, tended to be topically vague, ideologically fluid, and adaptable in practice. Generally, political campaigns and the policies derived from them were the factor that influenced administration and regulation on the local level the most. Like the “internal model” of law, they gave cadres great flexibility to regulate according to local needs—most often at the cost of a precise formulation of broader standards. Consequently, cadres’ scopes of responsibility were often unclear and their accountability for unexpected problems arbitrary.162 Furthermore, while a great advantage of the “internal model” was its incomplexity—it empowered legal non-experts (as most cadres were) to local decision-making and public administration—this approach often resulted in an underestimation of the general complexity of legislative backgrounds. According to Li, this resulted in the law “not develop[ing] as fully as it might have into an effective means by which the central authorities could control the actions of lower-level administrators”.163 Instead, national law was often oversimplified at the local level, top-down campaign directives were misinterpreted or willfully distorted, the local level remained general underregulated, and nationwide legal standards underdeveloped. Li states: “In many circumstances, the laws merely had the effect of indicating broad policy concerns and citing a number of examples of the application of these policies, but otherwise left the local administrator free to do as he wished.” With this freedom of interpretation gradually becoming the norm as the time passed, local cadres technically had the freedom to ignore even very explicit rules.164 At the same time, campaigns began to develop their own dynamic which further increased the fluidity of law in practice: especially during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the interpretation of the law became increasingly politicized, and campaigns tended to overlap with or entirely replace written law, ultimately almost to the point of “lawlessness”.165

162 Li, “Jianguo chuqi de chengshi gonggong weisheng zhili shulun,” 111–112. 163 Li, “The Role of Law in Communist China,” 85. 164 Ibid., 86. 165 Ibid., 104–105. 85 REVOLUTIONARY SHANGHAI AND CHENGDU: SANITARY LAWMAKING PUT ON HOLD (1950–1980) Under the circumstances described above, Shanghai and Chengdu experienced a period of roughly two decades—from the late 1950s to the late1970s—during which the regulation of waste management mostly followed the “internal” model of lawmaking. Concerning urban sanitation, a small set of local written law existed in both cases but it failed to develop and pronounce clear norms. Some efforts to modernize waste management were made, but the basic organization of it was still carried out in a similar manner as during Republican times (see chapter 2.3). Even the concept of regulating public health through campaigns was not entirely new, as the people had already come to know this format during the Republican New Life movement (chapter 2.2.3). As will be demonstrated through the examples of Shanghai and Chengdu, the described shift to the locally focused “internal model” of lawmaking resulted in underdeveloped legal sanitary regulation during the Mao era. Public health strategies were rarely issued in the form of fixed law, but via policies and campaigns that provided instructions concerning healthcare, general sanitation, and personal hygiene. These policies encouraged inter alia waste collection for the national recycling scheme, street cleaning, water purification, pest extinction, and the reuse of items that would otherwise have been thrown away at household level.166 Nevertheless, a minimal legal background for urban sanitation existed in both Shanghai and Chengdu. The following paragraphs provide an overview on these regulations, analyze their efficiency and point out their potentials and shortcomings with regard to the local sanitary conditions. Generally, the 1950s and 1960s were a period of substantial urban transformation. Before the late 1950s, Shanghai had been a hub of the textile and light industries. In the course of the Great Leap Forward, it became China’s most important center for the heavy industry in a process that focused all administrative efforts on the fulfillment of the industrial development plan. The development plan, however, was beneficial to Shanghai’s infrastructural modernization: firstly, in order to increase industrial supply and the transport of goods and workforce, the local traffic and communication networks were improved to connect the inner city with its outskirts and hinterlands. Secondly, the new factories required

166 Li, “Jianguo chuqi de chengshi gonggong weisheng zhili shulun,” 112. 86 various public utilities services, most notably, running water, electricity, and coal gas supply. With more and more danwei (work units) setting up appliances to connect to these new infrastructures, the general public also benefited from these initiatives. However, an overemphasis on infrastructural modernization during the construction phase absorbed most administrative attention and almost entirely withdrew it from other areas of importance. For several consecutive years, it even slowed down the industrial development that it was supposed to boost. As soon as infrastructural development was completed, industrial development became the sole focus of attention—much to the disadvantage of Shanghai’s environmental resources, which deteriorated quickly under the polluting byproducts of industrial production. 167 Overall, however, Shanghai was—within the standards of a socialist country—a comparatively fast developing city where public administration followed an overall progress-oriented approach. To the disadvantage of this analysis, few primary resources are available that provide detailed information about sanitary regulations from the 1950s to the 1970s. A general overview on sanitary legislative development during this phase is presented in the Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, however, this compiled volume is not a source in itself and is somewhat ideologically biased in its portrayal of public health development in Shanghai. According to academic standards it cannot be regarded as a fully reliable reference work since the editors have refrained from revealing their full range of used sources. Nevertheless, judging from the volume’s comprehensiveness and the fact that various topics related to waste management featured in the Weisheng zhi show a high level of detailed congruence with this author’s own findings, it can by all means be used as a reference for general topical orientation. According to the Weisheng zhi, sanitary management in Shanghai was not very strictly regulated between the 1950s and 1970s. Although the actual practice of local waste management differed from Republican times in various aspects (see chapter 2.3 for details), sanitary law during these years was generally characterized by a high resemblance with pre- communist sanitary law and a rather generic content. It was hardly developed over the years despite obvious weaknesses, the most important of which being a lack of specific binding standards and precise instructions on how exactly to proceed with

167 Cf. Huang Jian 黄坚, “‘Dayuejin’ shiqi Shanghai de shizheng jianshe ‘大跃进’时期上海的市政建设,” 21–23. 87 urban sanitation. For the entire period, the Weisheng zhi lists only a handful of issued sanitary guidelines. The earliest one, the “Public Health Management Regulation of the Police Department of the Shanghai People’s Government (Shanghai shi renmin zhengfu gong’anju gonggong weisheng guanli guize 上海市人民政府公安局公共卫生管理规则), issued on July 4, 1949, banned any public waste dumping, doing one’s ‘private business’ in public, discarding any waste water in public channels and gutters, and washing out one’s chamber pots at any other than the designated times or emptying them out in the streets. Any disregard of the regulation was to result in an almost utopically high fine between 300 and 1000 yuan or several days of compulsory labor service, and local residents were obliged to observe and report on each other’s behavior. This was perhaps the most notable deviation from pre-communist waste management law: special surveillance through sanitary police was no longer necessary, as the communist societal structure shifted the responsibility of mutual moral control to the citizens. Municipal sanitary services addressed in this regulation included, for example, the provision of public waste bins and a daily waste collection service.168 This regulation, which shows parallels with pre-war sanitary law and does not go beyond it with regard to any augmentation of sanitary standards or modernization of waste management techniques, was minimally extended in June 1957—however, only in the form of a tongzhi 通知 (notification), not as a legally binding update of the regulation. The format of a tongzhi, the major function of which being the information and education of the public, represents the policy character of these guidelines and their orientation at the “internal model” of law, as opposed to a legally binding document.169 Even the previously mentioned Weisheng guanli guize of 1949 was actually not regarded as strictly binding, but rather as an administrative order. As the Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi states, the only guideline for waste management that really had binding quality was a four-year plan entitled “Plan for the Treatment of Household Waste for the Years 1956–1959 (Guanyu 1956–1959 nian chuli shenghuo laji de guihua 关于 1956– 1959 年处理生活垃圾的规划)”, which addressed the production of fertilizer from household waste, demonstrating the immense importance of the communist

168 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 上海环境卫生志编纂委员会, comp. Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi 上海环境卫生志, 513. 169 Ibid., 514–515. 88 recycling economy, which was closely related to fertilizer production (cf. also chapter 2.2.1). It prescribed the installation of three waste fermentation stations in Shanghai as well as the economization of garbage collection and transport techniques, so that less material would be lost. Although initially scheduled for four years only, this plan as well as the abovementioned regulations became common practice and prevailed more or less in their original form until 1991.170 Another four-year-plan addressed the connection of waste management to the planned economy and its infrastructure. It thus was, again, directly related to national recycling: the “Outline of the Public Health Bureau’s 1953–1957 Plan on Environmental Hygiene (1953–1957 nian weishengju huanjing weisheng jihua lunkuo 1953–1957 年卫生局环境卫生计划轮廓)” provided that the traditional waste transport by boat be enforced through additional transport by railway—this way, peasants were supposed to receive more and faster fertilizer deliveries—; the installation of more and better waste docks to facilitate water transport; and the introduction of motorized garbage and night soil collection vehicles to improve collection performance.171 Although various other guidelines concerning general public health and hygiene existed, these guidelines formed the sole basis on which Shanghai’s waste management system operated throughout the entire 1950s to 1970s. It was characteristic of urban sanitary law in Revolutionary China to be as simplistic as possible, which is why Chengdu differed not much from Shanghai in this respect. Like Shanghai, Chengdu was turned into a regional center for new industries, although its nationwide significance as an industrial hub was not nearly comparable to Shanghai or even its neighboring competitor in Sichuan province, Chongqing. In Chengdu, small-scale manufactures continued to strive next to the heavy industry. The industrial development and infrastructural modernization of Chengdu began several years later than in Shanghai in the course of the “Third Front” (Sanxian 三线), an industrial and military development program of China’s border regions that was carried out between 1964 and the 1980s.172 In its course, Chengdu was chosen as one of Sichuan’s production locations for the

170 Ibid., 75. 171 Ibid., 74. 172 Cf. Zhou Mingchang 周明长, “Sanxian jianshe yu Sichuan sheng chengshi xiandaihua 三线建设与四川省城市现代化,” 51; Zhang Chan 张产, and Chen Lijun 陈礼军, “Cong jindai kaishi de Chengdu yu Chongqing de jingzheng 丛近代开始的成都与重庆的竞争;” Bramall, Chris, The Industrialization of Rural China, 20. 89 defense industry, but it especially functioned as the new provincial logistics hub, forming the core of Sichuan’s expanding network of railways and roads.173 Since the Third Front project developed various problems, related industrial investments in Sichuan were mostly suspended already by 1973. In general, the concentrated flow of resources into the project had cost the province various forms of development in many other areas that were unrelated to the heavy industry. The planning of industrial development had not correlated well with the real possibilities to successfully complete local sub-projects, and the failed program left the whole area economically strained of resources and in a state of incomplete industrialization. Thus, Chengdu’s general state of development from the 1950s to the 1970s was significantly lacking behind Shanghai, which, although not directly included into the Third Front development plan, was at the forefront of China’s industrialization scheme. For these reasons, Chengdu did not enjoy infrastructural modernization to the extent that Shanghai did and experienced less urban transformation but also, to the advantage of its environment, significantly less industrialization.174 It may therefore be concluded that sanitary conditions in Chengdu did not change as much as in Shanghai, because the entire city was not transformed as substantially. Nevertheless, Chengdu’s sanitary sector, which had been much less developed that Shanghai’s during the Republican era, actually changed more fundamentally during the 1950s and up to the 1970s. Like in the case of Shanghai, the availability or accessability of detailed primary sources concerning sanitary regulations during this phase is limited, but a rough overview that the author of this thesis has decided (with reservations) to refer to is provided in the compiled volume Chengdu shi zhi—Huanjing weisheng zhi. According to this volume, Chengdu’s sanitary administration was taken over in 1950 by the newly founded Public Health Bureau (Chengdu shi weisheng ju 成都市卫生局) and Public Health Party Committee (Weisheng weiyuanhui 卫生委员会), the combined executive competencies of which exceeded those of the previous Weisheng shiwusuo. In 1958, the Weisheng ju formed a subdivision for waste management, the Chengdu Street Cleaning Management Office (Chengdu shi qingjie guanli suo 成都市情结管理所), which took charge of the organization of waste collection and street cleaning. The Office had various branches throughout

173 Zhou, “Sanxian jianshe yu Sichuan sheng chengshi xiandaihua,” 54–55. 174 Cf. Naughton, Barry, “The Third Front: Defence Industrialization in The Chinese Interior,” 363, 368, 381. 90 town to share the workload, each of them responsible for a designated district. Later, in 1968, it was joined by a Revolutionary Committee (Geming weiyuanhui 革命委员会), which ultimately took over the entire organization of street cleaning during the Cultural Revolution. All new institutions basically adopted the prewar waste management law but issued a few amendments that aimed at integrating the local population into the waste management system: for example, the “Chengdu Regulation on the Collection of Street Cleaning Fees (Chengdushi qingjiefei zhengshou banfa 成都市清洁费征收办法)” of 1950 not only prescribed a taxation for waste collection but also proclaimed sanitation as an act of patriotism that everybody was supposed to contribute to.175 In 1958, a trial law entitled “Provisional Regulation on Night Soil and Waste Management in Chengdu (Chengdu shi fenbian laji guanli zanxing banfa 成都市粪便垃圾管理暂行办法)” was issued, which officially reconnected sanitation with the target to achieve a ‘proper urban appearance (shirong 市容)’, and also coordinated the delivery of fertilizer to the countryside. Although only a trial law, according to the Chengdu huanjing weisheng zhi this regulation came to be the “most important” local sanitary law until the end of the 1960s, along with some subsequent regulations concerning street cleaning were published throughout the 1960s. They addressed the installment and maintenance of new public bathrooms and cesspools, sanitary night soil treatment, the “eradication of the seven pests (chu qi hai 除七害)”176, market hygiene, and street sanitation, and also declared fines to be assigned for any offenses. Under the influence of the Cultural Revolution, the implementation of all local sanitary regulations faded despite the continuance of educative public announcements, and no significant adaptations were made until the late 1970s.177

175 Chengdushi difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 成都市地方志编纂委员会, comp., Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi 成都市志—环境卫生志, 110, 117, 134–136. 176 The national “Eradicate the Four Pests” campaign (Chu si hai yundong 除四害运动, 1958– 1960) generally targeted rats, sparrows, flies, and mosquitoes (cf. Shapiro, Judith, Mao’s War against Nature, 86–88). In various places including Sichuan province, however, the number of “pests” was extended to seven and included also schistosoma worms, cockroaches, and bedbugs (personal information by Jiang Hong 姜鸿, doctoral candidate at the History Department of East China Normal University (ECNU). Cf. also Zhao Sheng 赵胜, and Su Zhiliang 苏智良, “Xin Zhongguo de ‘Chu si hai’ yundong 新中国的‘除四害’.” 177 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 118–119. 91 1.3.3. Waste Pollution as a Catalyst for Environmental Lawmaking in Mainland China (1970s to 1980s)

As the previous sections have pointed out, neither Shanghai’s nor Chengdu’s sanitary guidelines of the 1950s to the 1970s specifically referred to “the environment” by its own. Shanghai, in fact, opened up a Bureau for Environmental Hygiene (Huanjing weisheng ju 环境卫生局) as early as 1963. For comparison, Chengdu’s Office for Environmental Hygiene, (Huanjing weisheng chu 环境卫生处) was not founded before 1981.178 Despite its name, and although it took over various tasks that actually dealt with environmental pollution, it was not born out of environmental thinking and did not explicitly follow any specific environmental protection goals at this time, but was founded to help relieve the Public Health Bureau’s workload. In principle, the entire legal background framework of waste management in Revolutionary Shanghai and Chengdu still very much resembled Nationalist sanitary law at this point. Even under the increasing pressure of problems with waste pollution that had started to emerge, sanitary law did not significantly evolve. It was not before the 1980s that urban waste management regulations were at least partially transformed and extended. This section will critically analyze those developments in sanitary lawmaking and demonstrate how waste management—which, until this point, had been entirely each municipality’s own responsibility—was reassessed by the Central Government of the People’s Republic in a nationwide initiative against environmental pollution. As has been demonstrated above, waste management followed a local, unbureaucratic and practical approach during the Mao era. This implies that not only the active involvement with waste management but also the evaluation of waste problems was almost entirely detached from national-level decision- making. As long as local communities were able to somehow manage the waste they produced, this approach was not necessarily problematic in itself, however, the absence of uniform waste treatment standards and guidelines led to uneven standards in the organization of waste management throughout the country as well as grave deficits in effciency. After about two decades of communist rule the CPC’s ambitious development goals had resulted in serious environmental damage, most of which had been caused by improper and largely unregulated

178 Ibid; Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi. 92 waste treatment. Political scientists and China analysts Orleans and Suttmeier summarize four main factors that contributed to an overall neglect of waste pollution: 1) The CPC’s strong focus on societal transformation and the establishment of state socialism withdrew the central government’s attention from many problems that were not immediately and visibly connected with or beneficial to politics, ideology, or the economy. 2) The ideal of a communist ‘victory over nature’ created an atmosphere in which possible environmental consequences of China’s development became unthinkable, or at least, unspeakable. Paired with the CPC’s intolerance towards any critique of its development policies, this taboo resulted in a lack of environmental risk acknowledgement and, equally importantly, risk education. 3) Even in cases where environmental problems were acknowledged and targeted, mitigation efforts often remained ineffective due to flaws in the organization of environmental administration. Various governmental institutions shared the task of researching on environmental problems and providing relief but co-ordination between them was poor and misunderstandings concerning concrete responsibilities frequently occurred. 4) The fulfillment of sanitary goals was hierarchized: with regard to China’s sanitary development status, the public health sector put human health over the environment for good reasons. During the Revolutionary period, environmental sanitation was in direct service to the fight against China’s most threatening diseases, fly and mosquito eradication, water purification, and the installation and maintenance of safe freshwater resources. Pollution was tackled where it threatened human health immediately, but not for the sake of a clean environment in itself.179 In addition to these four points, there was another reason that contributed to a lack of consciousness for environmental pollution—namely, the aforementioned system of national recycling. In theory, this system held great potential for long- term sustainable waste management but developed many insurmountable problems in practice (cf. esp. chapter 3.3). Most importantly, the framing of waste as something exclusively positive, as “treasures” waiting to be recovered, compromised the Chinese society’s general perceptiveness of possible problems connected to waste treatment. Unfortunately, in the course of China’s speeded-up industrial development from the Great Leap Forward onward, national

179 Orleans, Leo A., and Richard P. Suttmeier, “The Mao Ethic and Environmental Quality,” 1174. See also: Shapiro, Mao’s War against Nature. 93 recycling—originally imagined as a ‘closed loop’—failed to be applicable for industrial wastes. They ended up as highly toxic fallout that proved useless for the resource circulation system and needed to be discarded, yet the necessity to develop environmentally safe treatment methods for these wastes was widely neglected and various forms of serious pollution emerged as a consequence. Although the scope of waste pollution from the 1950s to the 1970s is not very well documented, Orleans and Suttmeier have found that the environment in and around industrialized cities was in a seriously troubled condition, with large cities such as Shanghai being affected especially hard—they report that by 1968, Shanghai’s rivers had literally become “industrial sewers” due to the fact that most of Shanghai’s extensive industrial scheme was located at the riverbanks and most factories discharged unfiltered industrial sewage immediately into the water.180 But pollution was not limited to the rivers: the general state of China’s urban environment had become so troubled that a constant danger for human health could no longer be ignored. Interestingly, it was exactly this nationwide pollution phenomenon that shifted sanitary concerns back from the local to the national level: acknowledging the degree of seriousness, the CPC decided to tackle waste pollution in several nation-wide steps even during the still on-going Cultural Revolution. One part of the suggested strategy focused on the inclusion of more industrial wastes—summarized as the so-called “three wastes” (sanfei 三废, referring to industrial scraps, waste waters, and waste gases)—into the national recycling scheme while simultaneously dredging out polluted rivers and relocating industrial units from cities the countryside in order to provide a better distribution of the burden of pollution. The other part of the strategy was to readdress sanitary legislation, which had been lying dormant for almost two decades. The year 1973 marked the onset of new environmental politics and lawmaking in Mainland China, not only in consequence of internal impulses exclusively but also in reaction to recent international considerations on the global state of the natural environment: after the First UN Conference on the Human Environment (otherwise known as the Stockholm Conference) had taken place in 1972, the PRC’s First National Conference on Environmental Protection (Di yi ci quanguo huanjing baohu huiyi 第一次全国环境保护会议) assembled a year later. Most of the environmental pollution observed by Party officials at this time

180 Orleans and Suttmeier, “The Mao Ethic and Environmental Quality,” 1175–1176. 94 was associated with industrial waste, and since China was deficient in risk- alleviating methods of waste treatment, the conference agreed on addressing the roots of the problem—waste production itself—in particular.181 On the long run, China would have to establish new environmental laws, transform public administration, promote environmental education, and revive its national economy that had been shattered by the Cultural Revolution, all at the same time. In order to avoid overambition, the conference committee agreed to introduce environmentalism in a step-by-step process starting with environmental lawmaking. The conference was closed with a report on the environmental state of the nation and the issuing of the so-called “32 Character Plan” (Sanshi’er zi guihua 三十二字规划)—“quanmian guihua, heli buju; zonghe liyong, huahai weili; yikao qunzhong, dajia dongshou; baohu huanjing, zaofu renmin 全面规划、合理布局，综合利用、化害为利，依靠群众、大家动手，保护环境、造福

人民 (Comprehensive planning and rational organization; multipurpose utilization

[of resources] and harmful turned into useful; Relying on the masses—everyone contributes; Bringing benefit to the people through environmental protection)”. The Plan was accompanied by a new national law entitled “Three Synchronicities Regulation (San tongshi zhengce 三同时政策)”, which was issued by the State Council and provided that pollution prevention and industrial development be synchronously planned, initiated, and put into practice. For the implementation of these new principles, an “Environmental Protection Leaders’ Organization and Group (Huanjing baohu lingdao jigou/xiaozu 环境保护领导机构/小组) was formed in 1974. Further involved in environmental lawmaking were the Planning Commission (Jihua weiyuanhui 计划委员会), the National Construction Committee (Guojia jianshe weiyuanhui 国家建设委员会) and the Ministry of Health, who jointly released a first nationwide trial standard for environmentally compatible industrial waste management entitled the “‘Three Industrial Wastes’ Discharge Test Norm (Gongye ‘sanfei’ paifang shixing biaozhun 工业‘三废’ 排放试行标准)”. It was to be enforced through local administrative measures taken on upon the initiative of said environmental protection leaders, who were expected to order local assessments of environmental problems and the

181 Ibid.; Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 77. 95 introduction of suitable measures. 182 In contrast to this comprehensive conjointment of central government units to initiate new policy processes, however, China’s rule of law was still strongly oriented at the previously discussed “internal model” of lawmaking. The new regulations had three core weaknesses, which were, at the time, almost impossible to overcome: firstly, they were so unspecific that they were, effectively, worth not much more than a mere declaration of intent. Secondly, as the abovementioned label “test norm” (shixing biaozhun) reveals, their character was still experimental at its core, which was expressive of the Party elite’s skepticism towards a shift from the “internal” to the “external” model of law. Thirdly, the whole country was missing corrective institutions to ensure that the expressed intents were actually implemented. All of these weaknesses were side effects of superordinate, more structural problems that affected the entire public administration sector during the entire 1970s and well into the 1980s. Public administration, which had been seriously disrupted during the Cultural Revolution, had to be gradually reconstructed in a years-long process after Mao’s death; measures included the removal of ideological ballast, the scientification and partial reformation of public administration, and a slow detachment of administration from policy dependency towards a higher conformity with the written law. Despite notable progression, new problems occurred during the process. Lam and Wong identify the core shortcomings of this reformation phase as followa: 1) A “pragmatic” (as opposed to ideology-based) approach to administration was overemphasized—it was now perceived almost as “applied science”, a knowledge-driven approach that aimed especially at efficiency. Theoretical or even philosophical considerations were disapproved of, and as a consequence, too little attention was paid to “administrative responsibility, accountability, [and] participation or rights of the service recipients and the public”. 2) The general approach to practical problems was often too normative and lacked empirical analysis despite the aforementioned new focus on knowledge. In fact, the new national guidelines were widely detached from the real local conditions. Thus, not only were local cadres given a hard time translating rather abstract national guidelines into locally appropriate measures but they were themselves unable to mirror useful policy advice based back to the Central Government. 3) While a re-establishment of the “external” model of law

182 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 78. 96 was pursued, public administration continued to depended almost entirely on political guidelines, which still persistently superimposed the rule of law.183 But even despite all of these weaknesses, the author of this thesis tends to regard the effort to integrate environmental goals into national legislation as an important achievement, as it laid the groundwork for a long-term confrontation with environmental problems. In 1978, China’s new constitution was ratified, which, for the first time, contained a paragraph on environmental protection (No. 11): “The country will protect the environment and natural resources and prevent and alleviate pollution and other environmental dangers (guojia baohu huanjing he ziran ziyuan, fangzhi wuran he qita gonghai 国家保护环境和自然资源，防治污染和其他公害)”. It was followed up by an “Environmental Protection Trial Law for the People’s Republic of China (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo huanjing baohu fa (shixing cao’an) 中华人民共和国环境保护法(试行草案))” in 1979, issued specifically to give directions for the implementation of Paragraph No. 11.184 Unfortunately, this new law, again, was formulated too broadly and was not developed beyond the form of a draft, thus providing not much more than a few baselines for environmental policies and pollution prevention. One of its major achievements was the determination of fines for polluters, although within the scope of research conducted for this thesis it could not be determined in which cases, how often, and to what extent such fines actually applied. Another mentionable achievement was the nationwide translation of this law into more precise, locally specific regulations. These were only drafted and implemented, however, with a deferral of several years: it was not before December 22, 1988, for example, that the Ninth People’s Congress of Shanghai (Shanghai dijiu jie renmin daibiao dahui 上海第九届人民代表大会) and the Fifth Conference of the local Party Committee (Dangwu weihui diwu ci huiyi 党务委会第五次会议) issued a catalogue with new local “Basic Regulations on the Safeguarding of Environmental Hygiene (Baozhang huanjing weisheng de jiben guiding 保障环境卫生的基本规定)” and guidelines on the “Distribution of Responsibilities for Environmental Hygiene (Huanjing weisheng de zeren fengong 环境卫生的责任分工)” that based on the

183 Lam, Tao-Chiu, and Hoi-Kwok Wong, “A Discipline in the Shadow of the State: Public Administration in Post-Mao China,” 197. 184 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 81. 97 Environmental Protection Trial Law of 1979. According to this catalogue, the danwei were the responsible units for the supervision of people’s dumping habits, the maintenance of cleanliness on work unit territory and the proper disposal of any type of waste that accumulated anywhere in the city; this applied for both industrial and household waste generation. The danwei had to ensure that waste collection and the maintenance of public toilets and cesspools were carried out properly, and that waste dumps (lajiduidian 垃圾堆点) on their administrative territory were well-managed, enclosed, and treated against fly breeding. For the first time, regulations for the inside of households were issued as well: Shanghai dwellers were now obliged to strictly separate solid from liquid household waste, and discard the former exclusively into waste bins while emptying out the latter exclusively into gutters. Some buildings had gutters installed specifically for wastewater discharge, which were called laji guandao 垃圾管道—in such cases, householders were especially obliged to maintain their hygienic state.185 It can only be speculated why this particular form of waste separation was chosen, but the frequent clogging of drains caused by solid waste discarded into them is a likely explanation, as would be the easier maintenance and better environmental compatibility of waste dumps that only receive solid waste and do not contain excess liquids that might leak directly into the surrounding soil. Of course, this kind of waste separation did not bring much relief to the natural environment after all (see also chapter 3 on waste management technologies), but at least measures like these were one step towards more control over waste management in general, and may also have had an educative value. An intended concern of these new regulations was to distribute the responsibility for sanitary maintenance on everybody’s shoulders: the leaders of each danwei unit in Shanghai and the people belonging to it were supposed to mutually support—and observe—each other in the fulfillment of these regulations, while still enjoying great freedom in how to go about it. For example, each danwei was free to organize street cleaning around the work unit among its members or collect fees to outsource the service, as long as the result was clean streets. Concerning the general appearance of the city, all danwei were expected to co-operate in keeping shared public surfaces

185 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 515–516. 98 waste-free, especially natural spaces such as local rivers and green spots throughout the city.186 Chengdu’s municipality began to adopt the new national environmental protection directives slightly earlier, but precessed them over the longer period of six years between 1983 and 1989. The first trial regulation, the “Chengdu Provisional Regulation on the City’s Appearance and Environmental Hygiene Management (Chengdu shi shirong huanjing weisheng guanli zanxing banfa 成都市市容环境卫生管理暂行)”, issued in 1983, very generally addressed the improvement of cleanliness, emphasizing the “governing dirt through the law (yi fa zhi zang 以法治脏). Other, simultaneously published regulations banned random spitting and night soil disposal.187 The rather generic wording of these new regulations express that Chengdu was still lacking behind Shanghai in terms of specificity and determination in environmental lawmaking: for example, a regulation entitled “Men qian san bao 门前三包” (which loosely translates into “Three Responsibilities Outside the House”), issued in 1985, simply obliged citizens to avoid causing “dirt” (zang 脏), “chaos” (luan 乱) or “falling short of the standard” (cha 差). Implicitly, this law referred to random waste dumping and spitting but effectively, although it was an actively propagated, well known local regulation, it did not make it very clear what exactly people were expected to do; this was left for everyday practice and mutual observation to clarify. 188 In 1989, the municipal government of Chengdu released a larger catalogue of regulations on environmental hygiene—the “Chengdu Regulations on the City’s Appearance and Management of Environmental Hygiene (Chengdu shi shirong he huanjing weisheng guanli tiaoli 成都市市容和环境卫生管理调理)”, a derivative of the aforementioned “trial law” of 1983. It encompassed standards for the beautification of the city, proper ways to clean up and dispose of waste, and punishments for cases of violation. Similarly as in Shanghai, the danwei were responsible for street cleaning and the observation of a clean public sphere, for the purpose of which they were supposed to form “environmental hygiene management divisions” (huanjing weisheng guanli bumen 环境卫生管理部门) that were expected to ensure that streets, rivers, and public surfaces were kept

186 Ibid., 517. 187 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 121. 188 Ibid., 119. 99 clean of waste and night soil. It was particularly forbidden to dump waste or relieve oneself in public areas, or to mix different types of waste together before disposal, such as liquid with solid waste or household waste with medical waste. For the first time, waste dumps had to be established in accordance with urban development regulations—this was perhaps one of the most notable progresses in comparison to previous regulations, as dumps had previously been largely unregulated—and all locations where waste was temporarily stored had to be protected against fly breeding and be disinfected at regular periods. Most importantly, all facilities that treated waste and night soil now needed to be managed by danwei-approved experts, a new directive that marked Chengdu’s turn towards knowledge-based waste management.189 Obviously, waste management regulations still remained relatively superficial in both Shanghai and Chengdu throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Overall, they failed to significantly progress beyond earlier states of sanitary law and can hardly be called “environmentally protective”. However, in this author’s opinion they represented important first steps, if not towards actual sustainability, then at least towards to a better understanding of waste pollution and a general consciousness of the importance of Central Government engagement. Since the implementation of regulations was taken more and more seriously as of the 1980s, sanitary law was hence, for the first time, supported by newly founded local institutions that began to coordinate sanitary and environmental management at both the danwei and neighborhood levels. In Shanghai, this task was mainly fulfilled by the District Offices for Environmental Hygiene (Huanwei fenchu 环卫分处), which were subdivisions of the aforementioned Shanghai Bureau for Environmental Hygiene. In Chengdu, it was the Environmental Hygiene Bureau (Huanjing weisheng chu 环境卫生处) itself that often shared tasks with other municipal bureaus working on environmental issues, such as the Urban Construction Bureau (Chengjian ju 城建局) and the Municipal Gardening and Forestry Bureau (Shi yuanlin ju 市园林局). These institutions organized the local personnel of the new environmental hygiene sector, initiated investigations on environmental problems, and launched measures against them.190

189 Ibid., 143–146. 190 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 76; Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 120. 100 To summarize this section, all of these developments were important steps towards a better alignment of national development goals, public administration, and the natural environment. The general structural problems that public administration still faced during the 1970s and 1980s were strongly inhibiting sustainable development and environmental damage mitigation in Mainland China. The failure of important campaigns, such as the recycling of the “three wastes” (see chapter 3.3.1), which aimed at alleviating environmental pollution, increased the pressure to compensate through other means. The Central Government thus put its hopes in urban planning, resource management, and technological change to be able to counterbalance the environmental consequences of industrial development, while the unraveling of China’s economic potential was given priority over environmental damage mitigation. In fact, during the 1980s decision-makers believed that only a market-friendly approach would bring forth durable solutions for environmental management in Mainland China. Consequently, instead of strengthening environmental protection through legislation, deregulation was accepted wherever local industries seemed capable to find their own ways to meet, for example, new emission standards. At the same time, directives for resource conservation were adjusted to the realistic capacities of the respective industries so that they could follow them without compromising on growth.191 With regard to this development, Wang states that the environmentally oriented legal initiatives of the 1970s were actually more consequent than those of the 1980s. As China entered into its economic boom phase, waste management regulations ultimately bowed down to rapid industrial and economic development and previous progress was reversed almost to a point from where sustainability needed to be entirely reinvented. The new, nation-wide focus on economic progress, combined with a lack of environmental education, made it increasingly more difficult to tackle the roots of pollution after the 1980s had passed.192 Although Orleans and Suttmeier as well as Wang state that the Communist Party was actually rather “early” at first acknowledging environmental damage during the 1970s—a time when the future consequences of pollution had only just dawned even on some of the world’s most developed

191 Loss, Lester, and Mitchell A. Silk, “Environmental Law and Policy in China,” 4–5. 192 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 82. 101 nations—, this thesis argues it failed at building on its initial insights and, instead, compromised on sustainability for the sake of national development.193 Besides this compromise, it is also likely that the long-term consequences of waste pollution were severely underestimated or even actively downplayed by the authorities in order to ‘greenwash’ China’s late twentieth century development strategy. This stance was also supported by academics. For example, still in 2012, Wang Ruifang writes that during the 1980s, “[China’s] environmental pollution had not yet reached a very serious degree (huanjing wuran hai meiyou dao feichang yanzhong de chengdu 环境污染还没有到非常严重的程度).” 194 Compared to the pollution that was still to come during the 1990s and 2000s, his statement may even hold true, but nevertheless—and this will also be addressed in more detail in chapters 2.3 and 3.3—the pollution that China had already reached by the 1970s can already be described as ‘very serious’. Yet, in hindsight, the attempts at environmental legislation during the 1970s and 1980s have sometimes been idealized by Chinese historians: Wang Minzhu, for example, calls the end of the 20th century “the beginning of the era of sustainable development” in China. Without making reference to the inefficiency of implementation and control, he sees the process of environmental lawmaking from the 1970s to the 2010s as successfully completed, and proclaims that the main responsibility would now lie no longer with the government, but with the commitment of companies to comply with environmental goals.195 This view is, of course, objectionable: the author of this thesis would argue strongly with Pomeranz who, in turn, places responsibility clearly with the Central Government and points to the problem that its relationship with nature has not changed since the Reform Era: still deeply rooted in ‘conquering nature’ thinking, the CPC continues to view nature as an obstacle to industrialization and economic progress, relying on new technologies to outsmart pollution.196 Still, in this author’s opinion the 1970s and 1980s can be regarded as a crucial period in which important foundations of environmental lawmaking were laid. Unfortunately, structural obstacles inhibited the implementation of new laws, with the result that critical environmental problems were conferred into the new century. What made the initially progressive steps

193 Orleans and Suttmeier, “The Mao Ethic and Environmental Quality,” 1176. 194 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 104. 195 Wang Mingzhu 王明珠, “Woguo laji chuli de lishi zuji 我国垃圾处理的历史足迹,” 49. 196 Pomeranz, “Chinese Politics and Environmental History,” 353. 102 fail was the hugely transformative, unstable political dynamic of the late 1970s and 1980s, when a long journey towards rule of law, bureaucratic regularity, central–local balance, revived state power and legitimacy of the Party had only just begun.197 But since Mainland China’s environmental struggles of the late twentieth century were taken seriously at their core, it is likely that they contributed to the gradual re-establishment of rule of law by shifting the focus on environmental hygiene from the local realm back into the realm of national concern.

1.3.4. Hong Kong: The Struggle with Sustainability (1950s to 1980s) In Hong Kong, the development of waste management legislation during the second half of the twentieth century can roughly be divided into three phases: a stationary phase (1950s and 1960s); a phase of environmental damage mitigation (1970s and 1980s); and a phase of struggle with sustainability goals (starting from the late 1980s). Post-war colonial Hong Kong managed to quickly restore its war- disrupted waste management system shortly after the colonial government had been reinstalled. The former sanitary legal framework was adopted along with it. As mentioned in the chapter 1.3, the previous development of sanitary legislation in Hong Kong had been rigid, with only few adaptations made to the scope and targets of regulations or to sanitary institutions. After the war, all major sanitary issues of the post-war years (such as controlling diseases, drinking water purity, and urban waste pollution) seemed to be under control at least so much that no more forceful sanitary purges had to be executed—at least, the author knows no record of such an event in post-war Hong Kong. Repressive measures to install law and order still occurred, but were usually associated with other contexts, especially illegal activites and fire risk in the hard-to-control squatter areas that emerged during the Hong Kong refugee crisis between the 1950s and 1970s.198 There also seemed to be no immediate, specific reason to change the running system, since most problematic issues could be solved based upon the already existing law catalogue and through the issuing of additional policies or simple

197 Lubmann, Stanley, “Introduction: The Future of Chinese Law,” 20. 198 These circumstances have been described in detail by historian of Hong Kong Alan Smart. See, for example, his following publications: “Unruly Places: Urban Governance and the Persistence of Illegality in Hong Kong;” “Agents of Eviction: The Squatter Control and Clearance Division of Hong Kong’s Housing Department;” and The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950–1963. Correlations between the refugee crisis, population growth, and mass waste production will be addressed in more detail in chapter 2.2. 103 administrative orders. Although the organization of sanitary management in Hong Kong now differed significantly from the communist Mainland approach, one gets the impression that the Colonial government applied its own high degree of pragmatism to it. One change worth mentioning, however, was a partial institutional restructuration of the sanitary services: in 1953, the Sanitary Department was absorbed by the newly founded Urban Services Department, which now hosted a Sanitary, a Resettlement, a Garden, and a Housing Division, all of which aimed at providing welfare and an improved infrastructure for public health in the attempt to increase Hong Kong’s quality of life and recreational possibilities.199 For the first time, the importance of clean green spaces in the urban environment was stressed through this institutional reformation, with public parks and pure beaches becoming an icon for development. But although environmental concerns were mirrored occasionally in new policies or administrative measures in the context of these developments, these were not yet directly related to environmental conservancy and were not yet represented in the law. In 1960, Hong Kong sanitary law was updated for the first time after the Second World War. The “Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance” (reissued 1964) provided, for example, that public and private buildings be kept in a sanitary state; that any overcrowding in dwellings and guesthouses be avoided for sanitary reasons (this was directly related to the refugee crisis and the formation of squatter areas); that food safety be provided through the licensing of food providers; that all places of human daily life be controlled for proper ventilation; that drinking water resources be protected from contamination and only used for drinking; that vermin-infested housing inventory be removed; that waste collection and disposal as well as street cleansing continued to be a public service; and that public toilets be centrally controlled by the government. Despite a variety of environmentally relevant paragraphs that announced much higher sanitary standards than previous versions of Hong Kong sanitary law—such new standards referred to increased emission control, the sanitation of parks and beaches and the “metallic contamination of food”200—this Ordinance, although significantly longer and more detailed than early twentieth century versions of the

199 Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 77. The Resettlement Division was later turned into its own Department (ibid.). 200 Cf. Ibid., 107–108. 104 law, shows no substantial difference in its basic public health targets than the laws of previous decades, especially not with regard to waste management techniques, yet the colonial government operated based upon this simple set of regulations for roughly the following twenty years. In the meantime, the challenges of sanitation gradually shifted from the urban to the environmental sphere without the colonial government really acknowledging. With passing time and Hong Kong’s accelerating development, its urbanized living environments were able to provide more and more satisfactory sanitary standards, while their natural surroundings began to deteriorate. Already during the 1950s, but especially during the 1960s to 1980s, various environmental problems related to unregulated waste disposal began to occur and intensify. These included water, air, and soil pollution, all mainly caused by land reclamation and landfilling, industrial wastes and emissions, and incineration as well as motorized traffic.201 The colonial government reacted with the rather late foundation of new institutions, especially the Environmental Protection Advisory Committee (founded in 1978) and the Environmental Protection Department (EPD, founded in 1986) as well as with new legislative attempts to reduce and prevent industrial smoke and uncontrolled sewage discharge to alleviate air and water pollution, but failed to tackle waste management as a whole. 202 Coincidentally, and much to the disadvantage of Hong Kong’s environment, the emergence of these problems fell into a time when governance in the colonial system was gradually becoming more and more difficult: in the context of the refugee crisis and Hong Kong’s overwhelming population growth, the government needed to quickly enhance its administrative performance in order to keep up with all additional duties. While a mass hiring of new administrators helped to a certain extent, public administration as a whole became less and less easy to centrally overlook and control. In its own way, Hong Kong thus also experienced a strong fragtmentation of administrative responsibilities that led to various complications. As Tsang explains, high-ranking decision-makers began to struggle giving structured orders as quickly and efficiently as they had used to:

201 On pollution in Hong Kong between the 1960s and 1990s, see, for example, Hills, Peter, “The Environmental Agenda in Post-colonial Hong Kong;” or Hung, Wing-tat, “The Environment.” The topic of pollution will be readdressed in more detail in chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis. 202 Cf. Hills, Peter, and William Barron, “Hong Kong: The Challenge of Sustainability,” 43, and 43 table 1: “Stages in the Evolution of Environmental Protection in Hong Kong”. 105 With the huge expansion of the government machinery in the quarter century after the Second World War, including the proliferation of departments, the old system suffered severe strain as top administrators saw their responsibilities expanding exponentially. The axiom in administration that urgent matters always get attention before important ones proved only too real in Hong Kong. It stretched the capacity of the old system to its limits.203

Already by 1970, Hong Kong’s government leaders were so tied down with those “urgent matters” related to population growth that long-term policy planning became a most difficult undertaking and many problems remained unsolved. An extensive consulting project with the aim to encourage more future planning under the chairmanship of McKinsey & Company—which demonstrates the colonial government’s willingness to improve but also its misguided assumption that government could be rationalized in similar ways as corporate businesses— led to a partial reorganization of the higher levels of government in 1971 and 1972, but by and large the organization of government could not be substantially transformed. 204 As of the 1980s, the whole government’s capacities were increasingly bound by preparations for the impending return of Hong Kong to Mainland China that was scheduled for 1997. In the course of “preparing for the end of the empire”, high-ranking secretaries were obliged to excel in their roles as political leaders (instead of as administrators) more than ever, with many of them becoming public figures and having to disregard their administrative duties. Furthermore, the Legislative Council’s strong incentive to open up the political system for more democracy before the return as well as its push to promote a rising number of Hong Kong Chinese officers into high-ranking government posts led to substantial restructuration of the composition of government. The obligations resulting from these major transformations further diminished the officials’ capacities to focus on other, less immediate problems even further.205 Consequently, the treatment of Hong Kong’s environmental problems was delayed until they finally came to be acknowledged as seriously health threatening. It was not before the mid-1980s that concrete steps were taken: the foundation of the Environmental Protection Department marked the onset of environmental regulation in Hong Kong.206 In the course of its new conservation

203 Tsang, Governing Hong Kong, 140. 204 Ibid.,140, 146–147. 205 Ibid., 152–153, 159. 206 Cf. Tilbury, Daniella, “Challenges to Sustainable Development in Hong Kong,” 367. 106 plan, the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance of 1960 was revised in 1988. Details about urban sanitary standards were adapted but additional paragraphs on environmental conservation and pollution prevention were not included.207 A year later, however, the colonial government followed up with a declaration of intent to tackle pollution and make Hong Kong a cleaner and greener place to live, which was also accompanied by concrete environmental policies: the White Paper “A Time to Act” (published in 1989) was a detailed report on Hong Kong’s environmental status quo that ascribed Hong Kong’s pollution problems explicitly to bad waste management and a long-term neglect of the environment. It expressed the intent to launch a) an environmentally acceptable waste management programme for the foreseeable future; b) comprehensive and environmentally acceptable territory-wide schemes for sewage collection and disposal, lasting well into the 21st century; c) Hong Kong waters to be an asset for community use [...]; d) attainment of air quality objections [...]; e) a general improvement in environmental conditions […]; f) a more environmentally aware and well informed community […], and g) a quieter city208 in the form of a ten-year action plan for environmental damage relief and infrastructural development, for the purpose of which “at least $20 billion […] and at least 950 new staff will be required by government alone over a period of ten years”. The plan included the construction of new sewerage facilities, landfill and waste transport modernization, treatment facilities for toxic waste as well as a system to implement the polluter pays principle (PPP).209 Despite these ambitious goals, however, the Colonial government remained skeptical about the possibilities for quick success and the reversal of already manifested environmental damage. Instead, it insisted on step-by-step measures over a longer period of time. As is pointed out in the White Paper, “rapid improvements cannot be expected right away [but] we must take immediate steps to prevent further deterioration of our environment, and then gradually improve it over the period of the ten-year plan”. The Paper also explained why immediate, comprehensive and radically transforming measures were considered problematic: “The increased

207 Laws of Hong Kong: Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1988). 208 Environmental Protection Department, White Paper: Pollution in Hong Kong—A Time to Act, 46. 209 Ibid., 3. 107 emphasis on improving the environment must not ignore the needs of the economy particularly where the introduction of the new legislation is concerned.”210 Indeed, economic assets were one of the most dominant driving forces for policy making in Hong Kong at the time. Argueing with Hills and Barron, the Colonial government’s traditional laissez-faire approach to public administration had been especially beneficial to economic development but was also symptomatic of an overall strong “non-interventionist” approach to governance in general, which, in the case of the environment, ultimately made the government “fall victim” to its own governance strategy.211 Hills and Barron narrate how the colonial government continuously struggled with the implementation of its own sustainability goals from the point of acknowledgement of Hong Kong’s environmental crisis until the return of Hong Kong to China, still putting economic targets first and procrastinating the mitigation crucial environmental problems, thus ultimately leaving them for the successional government to solve.212 After all, the plan presented in the White Paper of 1989 only expressed an intent to tackle pollution long-term. Ultimately, it was not effectively translated into legislation in all areas of importance. Especially in the field of waste management, desirable new standards were still under discussion during the 1990s but had not become part of an integral sustainability strategy that wouldbe reflected in environmental lawmaking as well.213 In conclusion, the colonial government failed to prioritize environmental concerns, especially waste pollution, in every possible way. In terms of sanitary lawmaking, colonial Hong Kong appears to have been more progressive than Mainland China during the 1970s and 1980s at first glance, but in reality it did not achieve a legislative foundation for environmentally compatible waste management that was much more sound than Mainland China’s, despite its much higher developmental status. Thus, in both Mainland China and Hong Kong, the struggle come to terms with the long-term consequences of pollution led to a state of underregulation despite better knowledge. But while the shortcomings in late twentieth century waste management regulation and environmental policy

210 Ibid. 211 Hills and Barron, “Hong Kong: The Challenge of Sustainability,” 51. 212 Cf. Ibid., 41. 213 Cf. ibid., 43, table 1. 108 implementation in Mainland China can still be partially explained—although not excused—through the existence of superordinate structural problems, such as the underdevelopment of rule of law and the national economy, Hong Kong’s failure to achieve a breakthrough in environmental and waste management before the return of the Colony in 1997 has to be attributed mainly to the government’s priorities on capitalist growth and procrastination. A comparison of both cases shows that the effectiveness of waste management regulations is not necessarily tied to the form of the political system. Hong Kong, an economically striving region with a powerful colonial government that was, at the end of the 1980s, progressively working towards democratization, had various advantages over Mainland China in terms of financial capacities, access to scientific knowledge and state-of-the-art technology, rule of law, and organization of administration, yet on the long run failed at adequately applying its resources. It is thus to be judged even more critically for its lack of proactivity during this period than Mainland China, which equally failed at achieving even the most sustainability goals but was tied down by national challenges of a magnitude that Hong Kong—even counting in its integration of four million refugees within thirty years, which was indeed an extraordinary challenge—did not have to face.

109 2. Waste Production, Waste Disposal, and Sanitary Education

While researchers interested in historical waste management in China can consult various publications on night soil collection, few publications have hitherto introduced readers to the historical methods of collecting household waste or other types of urban refuse. As discussed in the introduction, they usually only provide a rather brief, descriptive overview on waste management without offering much interpretation, and mostly focus on a single case study only without giving examples for possible comparison. A more comprehensive view into primary materials—in this case, archival material from the Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA), the Chengdu Municipal Archives (CMA), the Sichuan Provincial Archives (SPA) and the Hong Kong Public Records Office (PRO) as well as historical newspapers from all three cities—can therefore add dimension, depth, and detail to the basic information that previous publications provide and allow for new conclusions on the efficiency and general organization of urban waste removal in China. A comparison of the cities of Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong in this respect enhances our understanding of waste treatment techniques that were ‘typical’ for twentieth century Chinese cities, whether or not they were influenced by Western models of urban sanitation. Both ‘branches’ of twentieth century waste collection and treatment—the ‘Westernized’ (applied in colonial Hong Kong and semi-colonial Shanghai), and the ‘local’ (as practiced, for example, in Chengdu but to a certain extent also in the Chinese-administered areas of semi-colonial Shanghai)—formed simultaneously and influenced each other in the context of the previously discussed development of the public health sector and its symbolic entanglement with nation-building. As will be demonstrated, the development of the ‘local’ type of urban waste collection formed more unique characteristics and diverged further from the ‘Westernized’ type after the establishment of communism in China, a time during which the entire organization of political and social structures as well as of public services was largely reinvented. At the same time, Hong Kong’s approach to waste collection and treatment began to be modeled more and more after the example of waste management systems in Western industrialized nations. This process resulted in a system that was very different from Mainland China’s but still

110 working with and under the conditions of local Chinese social and cultural structures. In comparing these systems, the following sections will continue to argue that both, despite their very different degrees of centralized organization, applied technology, and involvement of the public, developed their own distinct weaknesses in terms of efficiency and environmental compatibility. As will be shown, even the supposedly much more ‘rationally planned’ Westernized forms of waste collection and treatment were often not fully under the foreign administrations’ control and generated unforeseen forms of pollution that kept challenging generations of administrators throughout the twentieth century. For the first time, this chapter presents a comprehensive, long-term overview on twentieth century waste production and basic management. It begins by reconstructing waste growth in relation to urban population increase and local preconditions for waste production, suggesting that rapid urbanization and an accelerating waste production in twentieth century Chinese cities were not only closely related since the beginning of the century but also posed challenges for the local public health administration systems. The chapter goes on investigating long-term local coping strategies and practices for rapid waste growth, comparatively examining the three cities’ approaches to waste removal and collection in terms of adaptability, efficiency, and environmental compatibility. This chapter thus lays the basis for further analysis on the historical ‘fitness’ of the compared cities to tackle late twentieth-century mass waste accumulation and pollution, both of which will be discussed in further detail in chapter 4).

2.1. Urbanization and Waste Production: Statistics on Urban Waste Growth

Based on the current state of evidence, we have to assume that it was the previously discussed evolution of East Asian hygienic modernity and the influence of Western concepts of institutionalized public health that first brought centrally organized street cleaning to Chinese cities. This certainly does not imply that street cleaning was not taken care of in pre-modern China, but it must have been handled in a more informal way. As of the jindai period, population growth and urbanization led to a growing urban waste pollution that reached its first peak in the late nineteenth century and called for more rationalized, uniform measures throughout the entire city that aimed at efficiency and sanitary control. As stated

111 previously in the introduction, Yu Xinzhong has found that due to a lack of systematic cleanup services, larger cities all over China experienced significant pollution with excrements and household waste by the late nineteenth century. He states that southern Chinese cities were less affected by the pollution than northern cities thanks to their year-round use of night soil as fertilizer. In northern China, its use was limited to the warmer seasons, which resulted in build-ups of unused night soil during the wintertime.214 Numerous other publications have pointed out the significance of the traditional night soil system for the Chinese agricultural sector, its influence on urban sanitation in the pre-modern and modern eras, and its inherent potential for sustainability. In fact, it was China’s most effective traditional system for the repurposing waste accumulations and pollution mitigation. Its efficacy, however, was completely reliant on the efficiency of collection.215 Previous publications on the fertilizer system fail to point out clearly that household waste collection was also an important component of the fertilizer system and that it contributed large amounts of material to the production of fertilizer. As the following sections will show, the fertilizer system was a powerful framework for urban waste management in twentieth-century Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, regardless of whether it took place under Chinese or foreign administration. Even in colonial Hong Kong, where waste management was most oriented at techniques imported from Europe, the Chinese fertilizer system had a long-term impact. This system was the reason why during premodern and early modern times, serious waste pollution in China was mostly a phenomenon of large cities. Although smaller cities and the countryside did, in fact, experience significant problems with water contamination—for example, from habits such as to wash out chamber pots in rivers, lakes, and ponds—,216 the fertilizer system ensured that rural areas recycled most organic materials, using most of their own waste on the fields. Waste composition during that time

214 Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China,” 54–55. 215 For selected key publications on the night soil system, see Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China;” Xue, “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’;” Worster, “The Good Muck;” Ferguson, Dean T., “Nightsoil and the ‘Great Divergence’: Human Waste, the Urban Economy, and Economic Productivity, 1500–1900;” Wen Shicheng 文史成, “‘Dao matong’ yinchu lai de ‘longmenzhen’——jiushi Chengdu de fenshui chulu 倒马桶’印出来的‘龙门阵’—— 旧成都的粪水出路;” Peng Shanmin 彭善民, “Shangban yihuo shiban: jindai Shanghai chengshi fen hui chuli 商办抑或市办:近代上海城市粪秽处理;” Chong, Yuk-sik, “A Night Soil Collection Point: The Public Toilets in Hong Kong, 1860s–1920s;” as well as Newcombe, K., and Nichols, E.H., “An Integrated Ecological Approach to Agricultural Policy-making with Reference to the Urban Fringe: The Case of Hong Kong.” 216 Cf. Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague. 112 dominated by organic components so that little environmental harm was caused by the limited amounts of materials that still needed to be disposed of. But despite the small scale, bacterial contamination could certainly occur in landfills, depending on the technique and degree of fermentation applied to the waste before it was brought to the fields.217 The connection between urban population growth, rising waste production, and urban waste pollution has, of course, been loosely addressed in previous publications, and at times, figures on waste production have been mentioned. However, no systematic collection of data on long-term waste production has been attempted to date and no comparative presentation of such data has been presented. In the author’s opinion, a concrete data survey is a crucial prerequisite for representative statements concerning the actual scope of waste production (especially in comparison between different cities), the challenges associated with waste removal, and estimates on the actual degree of urban waste pollution. The following section closes this data gap: the figures displayed in the following section reconstruct the increase of waste production in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong between the early 1900s and the 1980s in relation to urbanization and population growth. Comprehensive, hitherto unpublished data derived from archival documents and newspapers of this period is presented to complete the strongly selective, fragmented data that has been gathered previously by other authors. To complete the overview, some remaining blanks have been filled in through calculation. 218 The completed overview allows for a first concrete impression of the actual development of waste production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu during the twentieth century.

2.1.1. Twentieth-century Urban Demographic Development

The first part of the following data comparison is an overview on the demographic development of all three cities for the period of the 1900s to the 1980s (figures 1 and 2). Although various authors have provided information on population development in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Chengdu for this time period, the data is rarely complete. The presentation of data is also exclusive to one city each; there is no previous attempt at a direct comparison to any other Chinese city or

217 See chapter 2.2 for further details. 218 Calculations use data cited both from primary materials and other authors’ works. See the Appendix for a more detailed description. 113 any city outside of China. For the first time, the data presented in the following graphs provides a comparative overview on all three cities combined. In this chapter, all data will be presented in graphs. The Appendix to this thesis has all the exact figures that the following graphs are based on displayed in tables, alongside detailed information on the sources used to generate these data.219

mio. inhabitants 8

7 Shanghai

6 Hong Kong Chengdu 5

0 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Figure 1. The Population of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s–1940s

As figure 1 shows, Shanghai had long reached the scope of a very large metropolis by the beginning of the twentieth century. Hong Kong was still significantly less populated, with a population similar to Chengdu’s during that time. It then started to grow quickly in relation to the flourishing colonial economy and exceeded Chengdu but never fully caught up with Shanghai’s population density for most of the twentieth century. When compared to Hong Kong, it becomes obvious that Chengdu, too, already came close to becoming a jindai ‘metropolis’ by the 1930s, a status that is usually associated more with cities on the Chinese east coast. Wang Di, supporting this view, sees Chengdu’s metropolitan character not only in its relatively high population density but also in

219 Note that all sources used to generate these data are included in the Appendix but omitted in this chapter to enhance readabilty and lay the focus on the analysis. 114 its general standard of development during the jindai period, its economic prosperity, its quality of life, its architecture, and its evolving mass media sector.220 Population growth was rapid in all three cities during the first half of the twentieth century: Shanghai and Hong Kong both more than doubled their populations between the 1900s and the 1930s while Chengdu’s population grew by over 30% between the 1910s to 1930s alone. An even faster population increase of the 1930s to 1940s—Shanghai and Hong Kong almost doubled their population again, while Chengdu gained an extra 50% of its previous population—is related to a nationwide refugee crisis induced by the Second World War and Japanese Occupation. It was at its worst in Shanghai and very serious in Hong Kong—both circumstances are well researched. Yet Chengdu, which is much less known, also took in a significant number of 282,061 refugees from rural Sichuan between 1937 and 1945, many of whom did not settle permanently in Chengdu but temporarily increased the population by about two thirds between 1941 and 1945.221 Rapid urban population growth has several specific implications for waste management, which holds true for the past as much as for the present: firstly, the sheer increase in the number of people that produce waste demonstrably raises total urban waste production (cf. figures 4 and 5 below). Secondly, the speed at which existing waste management systems have to be adapted to the growing waste production causes challenges; the less technically equipped and organizationally flexible these systems are, the more likely a city is to experience waste pollution. The specific problems that resulted from this for Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong will be readdressed at various other points in this dissertation, especially in chapters 2.2, 2.3, and 3. Thirdly, the spatial capacities of a given area determine whether both growing numbers of population and waste dumps (or other facilities of waste treatment) can be smoothly accommodated without an undesirable impairment of residential areas. As could be reconstructed for this thesis, Shanghai’s foreign communities experienced great difficulties to accommodate both their growing population and its rising waste production

220 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 4, 7. 221 For more detailed data on refugees, see Wakeman Jr., Frederic, “Urban Controls in Wartime Shanghai;” Peterson, Glen, “To Be or Not to Be a Refugee: The International Politics of the Hong Kong Refugee Crisis, 1949–55;” Lai Jing 赖静, “Kangzhan shiqi liuru Chengdu de nanmin renshu yanjiu 抗战时期流入成都的难民人数研究,” 29. 115 within the limited concession areas during the 1930s (see especially chapter 3.2), while Hong Kong has been dealing with conflicts over land use for either urban expansion or waste management since the 1960s (see especially chapter 3.1). Although all three cities grew at an almost similarly fast-paced rate, population composition distinguished them. Chengdu was, apart from a small number of individuals, mostly unaffected by the presence of ‘Western’ expatriates during the time period examined in this thesis. Shanghai and Hong Kong, in turn, were deeply shaped by the small but powerful foreign communities that ruled them. Although it is a well-known fact that Shanghai’s and Hong Kong’s foreign populations accounted for only a tiny fraction of the local population, concrete figures on the foreign versus native Chinese populations are rarely displayed in a direct comparison. Taking the 1930s as an example, figure 2 therefore specifies on the ratio of Chinese to foreign inhabitants in Shanghai and Hong Kong; the comparison is restricted to this example since Shanghai’s foreign population dissolved with the end of the concessions in 1943.222 Despite extensive research efforts, it has been impossible to reconstruct precisely the population composition in the Huajie areas of Shanghai, but as it is known, most foreigners resided in the International Settlement and French Concession and even there, their number was very low in proportion to the native Chinese population. Consequently, the probably extremely low number of foreign residents in Shanghai’s Huajie areas can be considered as insignificant for the present analysis and the following figure will treat the population of the Huajie areas as if it had been exclusively Chinese. Figure 2 visualizes how much smaller the foreign communities of Shanghai and Hong Kong really were in comparison to the native Chinese communities, and that communities from the industrialized West accounted for the smallest group despite their enormous political power. In connection with waste production, population composition is an important factor when it comes to consumption behavior and throwaway habits.

222 Cf. Bickers, Robert, “The End of British Hegemony in the International Settlement, 1937– 1945;” and Cornet, Christine, “The Bumpy End of the French Concession and French Influence in Shanghai, 1937–1946.” 116 mio. mio. inhabitants inhabitants

2 0,45

1,8 0,4

Other Other, esp. Japanese 1,6 Chinese Chinese 0,35 European/ European/ American/ Russian American/ Russian 1,4 0,3

1,2

0,25

0,2

0,8

0,15 0,6

0,1 0,4

0,2 0,05

0 0 Internaonal French Huajie Hong Kong Selement Concession Figure 2. The Population Composition of Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1930s

117 For semi-colonial Shanghai, the displayed category “Other” included especially a majority of Japanese expatriates, while in Hong Kong, it was an internationally mixed group. In Hong Kong, the process of ethnic division did not change significally after the end of Hong Kong’s refugee crisis in the 1970s; according to the figures behind figure 2, non-Chinese ethnic groups accounted for less than 3% of Hong Kong’s population between the 1950s and 1980s. Even today they still make up not more than 8% of the population, with “Whites” being among the smallest communities of Hong Kongers.223 For the second half of the twentieth century, a continuously high increase in population can be witnessed for all three cities (figure 1). The temporary plummet in Shanghai’s population between the 1960s and 1970s can be explained by the outmigration of sent-down youth (almost 1.5 million individuals) during the Cultural Revolution, who did not return before the late 1970s. For Chengdu, exact data is missing to date, but a similar plummet is likely.224 In total, Shanghai’s population still grew by about a third between 1950 and 1986, Hong Kong’s population more than doubled, and Chengdu’s population even expanded six-fold. As the following analysis will show, this high growth rate also expresses itself in all three cities’ waste production.

2.1.2. Twentieth-century Urban Waste Growth The following graphs are compilations of data on daily (figure 3) and annual (figure 4) waste production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu for the time period of the 1900s to the 1980s. Additionally, waste production in Shanghai during the semi-colonial period is displayed separately (figure 5) to enable a comparison between the foreign districts and Huajie areas. Again, see the Appendix for all exact figures and sources behind these figures. Although the underlying data makes no clear distinction concerning the exact relation between household waste and industrial for the period of the early- to mid-twentieth century, the following figures refer mainly to household waste. For the period from the mid-twentieth century to the 1980s, they refer exclusively to household waste. Industrial waste production will be discussed separately in chapter 3.

223 For census and ethnicity data in Hong Kong (2016), see Race Relations Unit, Home Affaires Department, “The Demographics: Ethnic Groups.” 224 Gui, Shixun, and Liu, Xian, “Urban Migration in Shanghai, 1950–88: Trends and Characteristics,” 535, 338. 118 tons/day 7000

6000 Shanghai Hong Kong

5000 Chengdu

4000

3000

2000

1000

0 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Figure 3. Total Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s

mio. tons/year 2,5

Shanghai

2 Hong Kong

Chengdu

1,5

0,5

0 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Figure 4. Total Annual Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s to 1980s

119 As it is clearly visible, the illustrations above contain a few data gaps: despite thorough and extensive consultation of primary materials and secondary literature, information on waste production during the early twentieth century, especially the 1900s and 1910s, remains very sparse. For Chengdu in particular, no data prior to the 1940s is available at present, which is at least partially due to the fact that documentation on waste production and management in the historical archives as well as in the local newspapers in Chengdu is generally much more limited than Shanghai and Hong Kong.225 Figures 3 and 4 show that twentieth-century waste production was subject to some fluctuations, which will be explained in the following. By and large we see waste production rise over time that accelerates rapidly after the mid-1970s in all three cities, especially in Shanghai and Hong Kong. During the second half of the twentieth century, all three cities had a high increase rate of waste production between 1.5 and 2.9.226 This increase seems to correlate with population growth (see figure 1) and the three cities’ historical economic and industrial development. In comparison with Shanghai, low total waste production rates in Chengdu and Hong Kong during the first half of the twentieth century can be explained through a much lower total population and lower degree of economic development in both cities. As of the second half of the twentieth century, the acceleration of waste production in Hong Kong—likely not only linked to population increase but also to economic development and increasing consumption—becomes especially obvious. Figure 5 on waste production in semi-colonial Shanghai’s different administrative districts needs to be specially explained (see also the exact figures in the Appendix). This figure shows the relation between waste production in the Shanghai’s different jurisdictive areas. It is important to closely compare this relation with the population distribution displayed in figure 2: with the Huajie districts being by far the most densely populated areas of Shanghai and the French

225 A possible way to gather additional information from sources other than the Municipal and Provincial Archives in the future could be—with the support of local scholarly networks in Chengdu—the attempt to gain access to private-owned collections of historical documents, which sometimes constitute a rich resource for local historians who work on the modern history of Chengdu (personal statement by Professor Dr. Li Deying 李德英 from the Department of History at Sichuan University). Within the realistic margins of material and time resources available to the author during research for this thesis, however, an in-depth search in private collections could not be considered. 226 These rates are the author’s own calculations on the basis of the exact figures displayed in the Appendix at the end of this thesis. 120 Concession the least populous district, it seems plausible that total waste production in the Huajie areas would be a lot higher than in the French Concession, while waste production in the International Settlement would be expected to be somewhere in the middle (see the 1920s example).

mio. tons/year 0,6

internaonal Selement 0,5 French Concession

Huajie 0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1

0 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s

Figure 5. Total Annual Waste Production in Shanghai, 1900s to 1940s

For the 1930s, however, the relation suddenly shifts: while waste production in the International Settlement further increases, it sinks rapidly in the Huajie areas and, to a lesser extent, in the French Concession. Shanghai’s general population increase between the 1920s and 1930s, however, would support the assumption that waste production should have risen throughout the entire city. But since the 1930s and 1940s were years of war, a growing gap in the local distribution of wealth can serve as an explanation. Extreme poverty and material scarcity hit especially the Chinese population of Shanghai hard, while the foreign communities were economically more stable. Another possible factor is the severe administrative disruption in the Huajie areas during the Japanese occupation period: difficulties in maintaining the usual street cleaning services (see chapter 2.2.3) may have contributed to the fact that lower values in waste production were measured during these years since a lot of household waste simply remained uncollected.

121 Hong Kong, which also fell victim to Japanese occupation (1941–1945), also registered noticeably lower waste production for this period (see figure 3) that could be related to wartime scarcity. Yet, Hong Kong, too, experienced a temporary disruption of its street cleaning services during the occupation. It is possible that a considerable amount of waste was not picked up and therefore not registered, resulting in a lower rate. Looking closer at the postwar development as displayed in figure 3, there are some unexpected patterns that need to be explained more closely. These patterns can be understood even more clearly when referring to the corresponding data included in the Appendix, which give a better overview on microfluctuations. For the post-war decade and the early 1960s, an interesting anomaly can be detected in the case of Shanghai: according to the aforementioned Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, household waste production during the Great Leap Forward and until the beginning of the Cultural revolution was about a third higher than during the years leading up to 1958 or the second half of the 1960s. Only from 1972 did household production begin to slowly rise again. The unusually high household waste production between 1958 and 1965 has no simple explanation, given the fact that these were years marked by poverty and famine. It seems unlikely that people would have had more to throw away during these years than during the years before and after. Instead, the most likely explanation for the rise in collected waste is a connection to the national recycling scheme and fertilizer distribution system, which required citizens to deliver all scraps and every raw material they could spare for China’s developing industry and their household waste for fertilizer production.227 As will be discussed in greater detail this thesis, the connotation of the term ‘waste’ shifted from ‘throwaway matter’ to ‘resource’ during this time; ‘waste’ collected within this theme was not automatically identical with ‘disposable items’. Consequently, even if more ‘waste’ was measured, this does not necessarily imply that more waste was discarded as well. In this case, the temporary increase in waste production/collection, in this case, would not represent an increase in wastefulness. Rather, it is likely that waste collection was temporarily more thorough, and it is also thinkable that people felt encouraged, or perhaps even urged, to throw away more than they usually would in order to support the national economic development. Similarly, the sudden

227 Cf. chapters 2.2.3. and 4 for further information on national recycling and fertilizer production during this period. 122 plummet in waste production as of 1966 suggests that the effect of augmented waste collection faded away as the Party’s attention turned to the onset of the Cultural Revolution. For Chengdu, a significant increase in waste production for the period between the early 1950s and early 1960s, followed by a decrease in waste production between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s is visible. Of course, another explanation for the plummet between the 1960s and the 1970s could be the decrease in urban population that was related to temporary absence of sent- down youth. Shanghai, at least, shows a visible drop in its population during the Cultural Revolution period. In both cities, the 1970s—characterized by an economic low during the Cultural Revolution and post-Mao societal transformation—seem to have been a period of temporarily lower waste production, followed by a much more rapid increase during the 1980s as the two cities began to develop economically.228 Besides an interpretation of long-term trends in total waste production, it is also crucial to look at relative waste production: the following figure shows that per capita waste production grew proportionally in Shanghai and Hong Kong but decreased in Chengdu. Per capita waste production can be calculated from demographic data and figures on total waste management—the methods of calculation used are explained in the Appendix.

kg/day 2 1,8 Shanghai 1,6 Hong Kong Chengdu 1,4 1,2 1 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Figure 6. Per Capita Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1950s to 1980s

228 In this case, the figures are based on related information in the Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 112 and the Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 31. They are also displayed and explained in the Appendix. 123 As figure 6 shows, despite the two very different economic systems that were in place, Shanghai and Hong Kong’s per capita waste production was actually not as different as might be expected for this period. Hong Kong’s increasingly capitalist, consummation-oriented economic background might have us expect a higher throwaway rate than communist Shanghai. It should be pointed out, however, that the majority of Hong Kong’s population during this time was low-income working class, just like in Shanghai, which might be an explanation for this rather similar proportional waste production rate. At the same time, waste composition could play a role in this case: while household waste composition had not changed much in Revolutionary Shanghai compared to its prewar mix of dominantly moist (that is, heavy) organics, plastics and surplus packaging were already on the rise in Hong Kong shortly after the second world war (cf. also chapter 3). The new waste composition in Hong Kong probably resulted in proportionally lighter but instead much more voluminous household waste. The three-dimensional volume of collected waste is not represented in its net weight, while all available statistics refer only to net weight but never to volume. It is therefore possible that rising consumerism and throwaway behavior in Hong Kong is not depicted in these figures, and that a comparison to Shanghai’s per capita waste production misleadingly lumps together two different categories of waste that actually should no longer be directly compared. Shanghai’s per capita waste growth rate of the 1950s to 1970s appears coherent to the aforementioned considerations on a ‘system-induced’ raise in waste collection during the Revolutionary phase. For the 1980s, it can already be associated with Shanghai’s accelerating economic development and rising standards of living. For the case of Chengdu, however, it is interesting that per capita waste production between the 1950s and 1970s is actually decreasing, while total waste production is overall rising. The reconstruction of the exact reasons for this being much more complex than could be accomplished on the basis of the resources available for this thesis, the author can only speculate that Chengdu falls behind Shanghai in this comparison due to its lesser developed status during the time. It would take an additional analysis of waste production in other large Chinese inland cities (for example, other provincial capitals or Beijing, Chongqing, Tianjin, etc.) to determine whether Chengdu’s per capita waste production was, on average, unusually low, or whether it might also have been

124 Shanghai’s per capita waste production that was actually unusually high in comparison to other Chinese urban centers under communist rule. Such comparisons could, for example, be valuable for further research on the history of consumption and sustainability in twentieth century China and should be pursued in future studies.

2.1.3. Discussion Despite the high explanatory power of the long-term overview given figures 1–6, the tentative character of all new data on waste production needs to be pointed out. Although the author considers them to be very expressive, a few restrictions need to be addressed. These are caused by a general scarcity of topic-related primary sources, and they are symptomatic of the representation of historical waste production in these sources.229

REPRESENTATION OF DIFFERENT WASTE TYPES

Assumedly, the data behind the presented illustrations do not always include the entirety of waste that was produced in any of the three cities. Especially for the jindai period, it is difficult to make exact statements. The already mentioned imperfections of street cleaning routines during this period are one factor that suggests this; another one is the substantial proportion of recyclables contained in the cities’ daily waste was already filtered out and redistributed by scavengers (see also chapter 4.1). Another restriction in the analysis of jindai waste is its composition: while the consulted sources uniformly suggest that household waste was the dominant type of waste in all three cities during this period, they do not make coherent statements about the additional accumulation of other waste types, such as industrial, commercial or construction waste. Despite extensive investigations in local archives and the historical press, there exists very limited explicit evidence on the production of industrial or special wastes during the jindai period, most likely because large quantities of them were simply mixed in with household waste during collection and treatment. There are occasional exceptions where sources refer explicitly to other types of waste: for example, Shanghai’s International Settlement recorded a daily waste collection of 845 tons for the year 1929, 640 tons of which being household waste, 205 tons of gathered street sweepings, and another 36 tons being “trade refuse” (meaning a

229 Note that this discussion is based on the evidence presented in the Appendix. 125 combination of industrial and commercial waste).230 Although all three types of waste were picked up and treated by the municipal collection service, information concerning the nature of the “trade refuse” category is missing: how much waste of this category accumulated locally? Did it contain toxic wastes? Did toxic wastes receive special treatment? As will be further discussed in chapters 2.2 and 3, toxic wastes were indeed collected and disposed of without special treatment during the jindai period. Since it is well-known, however, that the degree of industrialization in all three cities was still relatively low at this time, it can be assumed that high levels of industrial and toxic waste accumulation were a post- 1940s phenomenon. Therefore—even if an unknown percentage of industrial wastes is included in the pre-1950s data—, this does not disproportionally distort the presented overview on twentieth-century household waste growth. As concerns the second half of the twentieth century, household waste (shenghuo laji 生活垃圾), industrial waste (gongye laji 工业垃圾), commercial waste (yingye laji 营业垃圾) and construction waste (jianzhu laji 建筑垃圾) were apparently measured and treated separately from each other in all three cities. Therefore, all post-1940s data strictly refer to household waste production as the most dominant type of municipal waste in this overview. Although documentation on industrial and special wastes remains underrepresented in comparison to documentation on household waste in the consulted sources, it is possible to make comprehensive statements on their treatment and related environmental problems in all three cities. These are presented and discussed in chapters 2.3 and 3.

DATA ACCURACY

Generally, measurements on waste production as taken by local administrators under the specific historical circumstances must be assumed to contain a certain degree of vagueness. Especially measurements taken during the first half of the twentieth century are more likely to be rough estimates made than exact measurements. This tendency reveals itself in the fact that different primary sources and existing data compilations by other authors (cf. also the Appendix) frequently present slightly contradictory figures. Such contradictions are, of course, a cause for concern that the available figures—which are already very limited to begin with—are generally biased or unreliable. After a thorough

230 SMA, U1-3-788. 126 comparison of different sources, however, there is sufficient coherent data to make strong statements on long-term waste production in all three cities. In defence of the historical personalities in charge of measuring waste production in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, it has to be pointed out that they had to operate under ‘aggravated circumstances’: due to the historical technological setup of local waste management, advanced facilities to measure urban waste relatively precisely (such as large industrial scales) were not available to the municipalities of Shanghai, colonial Hong Kong, or Chengdu before the second half of the twentieth century. The historical local waste management techniques in Chinese cities, even under European administration, simply lacked reliable standards of measurement. It is also uncertain whether concrete measurements really incorporated all waste produced locally within one day. Especially in Shanghai’s French Concession and Huajie areas, waste accumulations were often not fully removed during daily waste collections. People tended to ignore the designated collection times, which resulted in large amounts of waste that still accumulated after collection had already taken place (see chapter 2.2 for further details). If local administrators took official measurements on such days, the figures they recorded were probably lower than the actual waste production. Acknowledging that contradicting data exists in the consulted sources, the author has decided to base the present analysis only on the most mutually coherent choice of data from the pool of available data. Figures derived from primary sources have been given preference over figures cited from secondary literature (which, obviously, rely on sources which the author has not consulted herself, but which are a much required reference in order to fill in occasional data gaps). Acknowledging also the fact that she has made a, to a certain extent, subjective choice of ‘seemingly more coherent’ over ‘seemingly more controversial’ data, the author of this thesis wants to point out that availability of concrete evidence on this topic is very limited in general, and that the figures selected for the representations in figures 4 and 5 already represent the majority of the available total of figures from both primary material and secondary literature. Every decision to omit data that the author perceives to be contradictory has been weighed cautiously and only under the application of extensive investigations against the chosen alternatives. The author would also like to stress that she does not interpret any of the figures used for the present analysis as ‘absolute’ figures.

127 They should be viewed only in comparison, and as long-term, tentative indicators of the speed of waste growth. But although the data used are only approximate values, the greater picture they represent is still explicit enough to serve as a basis for further working hypotheses concerning the possible environmental consequences of fast-growing waste accumulation in the densening urban environments of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. The few controversial figures that have been omitted in the analysis do not contradict this overall impression.

2.2. Local Characteristics of Waste Collection

This chapter explores the implementation of the previously discussed regulatory and organizational framework at the practical level. Special focus will be placed on the different techniques used to remove waste from the urban sphere in all three cities, their efficiency, and their environmental compatibility. The chapter is divided into a part each on urban sanitation before and after 1949, as the foundation of the People’s Republicof China marked a watershed whereupon waste removal on the Chinese Mainland and in Hong Kong took very different historical paths. The narrative traces back the ways in which Revolutionary China preserved certain key elements of waste management that may be described as ‘traditionalist’ (centered around resource circulation and, in the absence of advanced technology, comparatively ‘simple’, preindustrial ways to remove waste from the urban sphere), while Hong Kong followed the route of most ‘modern’ industrialized societies (based on the linear principle production–disposal– destruction). At the same time, it critically investigates both paths’ qualities in terms of their qualities for long-term sustainability and pollution prevention. As this chapter will show, although it ultimately posed similar challenges to each individual city, the problem of waste accumulation had unique characteristics at the local level. Between the three different locations and through time, there existed no one way to handle waste; local circumstances included demographic and geographic challenges, the cooperation of both urban and rural populations, people’s acceptance of political ideologies, as well as local administrators’ capability to cope with a multitude of structural problems at the same time. While Shanghai and Hong Kong compare better in waste management organization prior to World War II, after the War it was Shanghai and Chengdu

128 that developed more similar structures under communist rule, while Hong Kong became a contrasting example—not only because of its turbo-capitalist path but also due to its entirely different approach to waste disposal in general.

2.2.1. Household Waste as Fertilizer As will be demonstrated in the following, urban waste treatment in modern China was tightly connected to the same trade networks that distributed night soil (fenbian 粪便, or sometimes, euphemistically: yexiang 夜香, “night fragrance”) to the countryside. Night soil was traditionally used in fertilizer production after undergoing various processes of sterilization and fermentation. Functioning as the backbone of the Chinese agricultural system since Song dynasty, its trade system interlinked urban regions, where most of the night soil was produced, closely with their hinterlands. Xue Yong actually speaks of a process of “agrarian urbanization”231 with regard to the integrative ways in which rural and urban communities strongly influenced each other in daily encounters over the exchange of fertilizing materials. For centuries, these materials included especially night soil and animal manure but, at least in the more recent history, household waste as well. Nevertheless, to date, very little research has traced back the significance of household waste for the Chinese fertilizer system. The night soil trade, being the most important prerequisite for pre-modern (non-chemical) fertilizer production, has received its fair amount of scholarly attention over the last two decades, while the role of household waste, although it has not been neglected entirely, still lacks precise documentation. This section fills this gap and thus interlinks the history of household waste collection more closely with the history of the night soil trade. As global historian Yong Xue explains for the case of the Jiangnan 江南 region, it was not merchants who initiated the fertilizer trade, but the peasants themselves who came to the cities in regular intervals to buy the types and amounts of fertilizer they required. They preferred to use different types of fertilizer for different purposes or planting seasons, and strategically frequented the locations where they could buy the most of what they needed.232 While rural areas located in close proximity to market towns profited most from practically never-ending supplies fertilizing materials, the more remote areas relied on cross-

231 Xue, “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’,” 41. 232 Ibid., 43. 129 country market networks to receive their shares from rural distributors.233 Since only a flexible application of different combinations of fertilizers materials resulted in optimal crop results, the single peasant effectively used night soil only to a limited extent, always mixing it with other components, one of which was household waste.234

SHANGHAI Although household waste was indispensable for the fertilizer business, big cities produced more household waste than the peasants actually needed. In early to mid-twentieth century Shanghai, for example, they rarely ever purchased the entire stocks of waste material that the city produced. An example from the International Settlement of 1933 shows that the amount of waste delivered to peasants throughout the year did not even make up for half of the amount that the Settlement wanted to dispose of: during the same year, 165,359 tons were shipped to the countryside but 88,024 additional tons were used in land reclamation sites (the most typical kind of local landfill at the time) and another 98,973 tons that could not be put to any other use, was incinerated.235 Certainly, Shanghai was the largest city in China at the time and the fact that it had a lot of surplus waste is therefore not surprising. In comparison, the next section will show that Chengdu, due to its smaller population and correspondingly smaller total waste production, had less difficulty giving most of its waste away to farmers. It would be useful to compare the exact volume of waste used as fertilizer in different Chinese cities throughout the twentieth century to gain an overview on its average significance, however, to this point the required data on other cities has not been presented yet. From Xue’s work we can conclude that the local or regional significance of the fertilizer system—and thus, its demand of household waste—depended largely on the local geography and climate: in general, much more fertilizing material was sold in southern than in northern China, since the warmer climate of the south allowed for several growing cycles within one year. Consequently, Xue finds that cities in southern China tended to be ‘cleaner’ than northern Chinese cities due to the fact that more waste of any type was effectively removed, and less waste was left behind that had to be dealt with in other ways. This ‘cleanliness factor’

233 Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China,” 54–55. 234 Xue, “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’,” 43. 235 SMA, U1-16-344; U38-1-947. For more details on the history waste management technologies such as incineration and their limitations in all three cities, see chapter 3. 130 mattered especially in cities that did not possess a sewer system yet, which, in those days, facilitated the discharge of especially feces but also liquid and solid wastes of various types.236 But as the following section will show, neither early- to-mid-twentieth century Shanghai nor Chengdu can be called “clean”, although both located in southern China and both had large amounts of waste taken away by peasants on a daily basis. Especially the fast-growing metropolis of Shanghai would probably have struggled even more with its daily waste production, had it not been for the fact that a substantial part of it was smoothly removed. For the establishment and maintenance of urban environmental sanitation, the peasants’ service was a hugely facilitating factor. A report of 1929 documented by Shanghai’s Public Health Department of the International Settlement confirms that population increase had been troubling the city’s household waste management system since the beginning of the century, but it also states that the peasants’ purchases had helped keep the total volume that needed to be dealt with in check.237 However, during the wintertime, when the farmers requested much less waste, the necessity to send large amounts of waste to landfill was beginning to become an organizational problem for Shanghai’s foreign sanitary authorities of the late 1920s: in correlation with population growth, waste production had begun to rise so rapidly that the material taken away by farmers grew proportionally smaller and smaller—naturally, they did not automatically require more just because there was an increased supply; they only required as much as the size of their agricultural units demanded. Shanghai’s foreign authorities were aware of this dynamic and its future consequences: already in 1921, the International Settlement’s Municipal Council expressed that it could foresee its dumping sites running out of space.238 By 1928, the landfill grounds leased from the Greater Shanghai government already received 33,439 tons of waste while farmers only took 8,877 tons during an assumed period of one to three months. What they did not take could be used in the Settlement’s extensive land reclamation projects along the Huangpu River, but the possibilities for land reclamation were ultimately limited due to the foreign concessions’ jurisdiction borders.239 Consequently, over time, the ratio of the types of waste that could be

236 Xue, “‘Treasure Nightsoil as if It Were Gold’,” 59–60. 237 SMA, U1-14-2806. 238 SMA, U1-14-2806. 239 SMA, U1-14-1054. The environmental dimensions of the use of waste in land reclamation in all three cities will be discussed in detail in chapter 3. 131 purposefully used to those types that required more resource-intensive treatment solutions was clearly developing to the disadvantage of the International Settlement—and, as chapter 3 will show in particular, the natural environment. Conflict with the Chinese authorities over land use permissions and excessive river dumping (chapter 3.2.2) were the consequence. The French Concession reported similar problems in 1929/1930, labeling metropolitan sanitation and waste management as “one of the most complex questions” it was facing at the time. Like the International Settlement, it was struggling to keep up with the rising waste production connected to its growing population. In the French Concession, too, waste production had begun to exceed the peasants’ demand for fertilizer as well as its own need of it as fill material in land reclamation. Back in 1921/1922—only eight years earlier—, household waste purchases made by peasants had still accounted for about half of the Concession’s total daily waste collections, however, in the meantime waste production had risen so much that the peasants now removed but a third of it. At the same time, like the International Settlement, the Concession saw its own dumping ground capacities shrink (see also chapter 3.2.2). Surprisingly, the Concession’s authorities seemed to have no accurate understanding of the role waste played in fertilizer production. Underestimating the importance which Chinese peasants placed on the specific mixtures of different fertilizers and probably also their capacities to enhance fertilizers through fermentation, the Concession’s authorities falsely believed that the organic material which the peasants received would contain extremely little fertilizing value because it contained few of the chemical components that were already common in Western chemical fertilizer production. Indeed, according to their report, one whole ton of Shanghai greens only contained 3.8 kg of nitrogen, 4.1 kg of phosphoric acid, and 4.2 kg of potassium in total.240 Convinced that this ratio must be uneconomic for the peasants as well, the French authorities even considered giving up the waste trade and switching to an exclusive combination of landfilling and incineration that would leave no waste behind. Much to the advantage of local peasants, however, they did not follow through with this consideration.

240 SMA, U38-4-3034. 132 CHENGDU

In the hinterlands of Chengdu, the general demand for fertilizer was comparable to that of to Shanghai’s surroundings. There is, however, no evidence that the removal of night soil and waste from the urban sphere would have been of equal importance to Chengdu as it was to Shanghai. After all, Chengdu never reached the same degree of population pressure and the corresponding dimensions of daily waste and excrement accumulation that made waste removal in large quantities so urgent in Shanghai. As has already been shown in the previous section, Chengdu saw its waste production rise with population increase but its total waste production during the Late Qing and Republican periods remained far below Shanghai’s. Thus, Chengdu had less material to offer to local fertilizer production than Shanghai had, yet it was surrounded by the highly productive agricultural areas of the Sichuan basin, which certainly had a high demand for fertilizer. An article of 1932 in one of republican Chengdu’s larger daily newspapers, the Chengdu kuaibao 成都快报 [Chengdu Bulletin], suggests that there actually was an undersupply of fertilizer: the article reports that much more night soil could potentially be salvaged for fertilizer production around Chengdu, were it not for the fact that public toilets were not emptied out completely or that their dilapidated condition often spoiled some of the precious night soil. As a consequence, local trade unions (gonghui 工会) that specialized in fertilizer, which were still very influential in 1930s Chengdu, began to pressure the city government to change these circumstances. 241 According to another major republican Chengdu newspaper, the Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻 [Latest News], Chengdu’s night soil business was organized in two of such trade unions, which not only strongly influenced the local fertilizer trade but also the constitution of local infrastructures for fertilizer collection, such as the management and maintenance of public toilets and their standard of cleanliness. While public health was certainly also among their concerns, they mostly cared about the profit that they lost with so much nighsoil unsold.242 Generally, Chengdu newspapers of the time reported about the significance of night soil for the surrounding agriculture every now and then but rarely referred to household waste. This does

241 “Qingjie cesuo banfa… tonggao shixing yi wei gongyi 清洁厕所办法——通告施行以维公益,” Chengdu kuaibao 成都快报, 24 March, 1932. 242 “Feiliao gonghui zhengli cesuo banfa… ling ge tongye zunzhao 肥料工会整理厕所办法— —令各同业遵照,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 5 May, 1932. 133 not automatically imply that household waste did not play a role at all in it. The author of this thesis rather has the impression that the availability of household waste as fertilizer was so self-evident for both the local authorities and the peasants that this topic did not need to be broadly discussed. According to a document held at the Sichuan Provincial Archives (SPA)—a study report written in 1940 by a team of English-speaking agricultural experts that had been specifically hired by the provincial government of Sichuan to determine Chengdu’s prospects for optimizing local fertilizer production—, household waste was definitely considered as a huge asset for local fertilizer production, and it had been used continuously throughout the twentieth century (and probably earlier). However, with Chengdu’s waste being much less abundant than Shanghai’s, its proportion in the fertilizer trade was smaller than in of Shanghai, which proportionally enhanced the status of night soil collection in Chengdu over household waste.243

HONG KONG Judging from the very limited range of reference that is made to the Chinese fertilizer business in the holdings at the Hong Kong Public Records Office and in other historical sources on the topic of waste management in colonial Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s British authorities, do not seem to have been keenly interested in the Chinese fertilizer system. It is likely that their indifference was linked to the fact that they were able to make extensive use of Hong Kong’s household waste in the context of the colony’s extensive land reclamation scheme (see chapter 3.1). Thus, they only needed the fertilizer trade to rid Hong Kong of night soil, but not for support in waste management. Anyways, in the early twentieth century, Hong Kong’s involvement in the fertilizer trade was already on the decline. As Chong describes vividly in his recent study, back in the nineteenth century Hong Kong had been part of a wide-ranging, lively fertilizer market in neighboring Guangdong province. Originally, as he explains, the fertilizer system was so influential in Hong Kong that its first public toilets were in fact erected by Mainland Chinese entrepreneurs instead by the colonial sanitary authorities, for the sake of ‘harvesting’ night soil from them.244 Hong Kong’s night soil was distributed to Hong Kong farmers but especially to Guangdong where it nurtured

243 Cf. SPA, 民 148-05-10132. 244 Chong, “A Night Soil Collection Point,” 98. 134 the mulberry trees, the natural habitat of silk worms, for the province’s textile production. The local night soil business for silk production began in the mid- nineteenth century and expanded until the early 1900s, whereafter it rapidly declined.245 In spite of the night soil trade, nineteenth-century Hong Kong was strongly polluted with feces due to the fact that working class households kept pigs inside their own dwellings. Families commonly inhabited the upper floor of their wooden houses from where they would drop vegetable scraps through the wooden planks to the ground floor where they kept the pigs. According to a report by the colonial surgeon of 1874, these spaces could usually “not be washed or cleaned”.246 If their space was too limited, the families even shared the same rooms with the pigs, both on the upper and ground floors. Large quantities of pig excrements produced in these circumstances—although animal manure was used for fertilizer production as well—were never removed during those decades.247 Even though these forms of animal keeping were ultimately banned after the turn of the century, excrement accumulation remained a problem; after 1911, political turmoil in China made night soil transport out of Hong Kong into Guangdong temporarily more difficult, which caused countless local investors to withdraw from the Hong Kong night soil market. In order to maintain the public toilet system without the support of private entrepreneurs, the colonial sanitary authorities had to quickly take over, purchase all toilets and install a citywide flush system in order to keep excrement buildups under control.248 The flush system, of course, significantly reduced the distribution of night soil in the Hong Kong area, as a large part of it was now literally discarded like waste. On a much smaller scale, night soil collection within Hong Kong continued until the 1970s or so under the directives of the colonial government, but deliveries into Guangdong ceased entirely by the late 1930s. Yet it was not only for economic reasons that the local night soil trade was terminated—the colonial government was also majorly concerned about the possibly contaminating qualities of raw night soil

245 Ibid., 99. 246 It has to be pointed out that such official reports were often compiled in the strongly biased tone that is typical for the self-image of colonizing powers who understood themselves as essentially more ‘civilized’ than the societies they were colonizing. Statements like the above must therefore be suspected to contain a varying degree of exaggeration or even disdain and are not to be treated as objective descriptions of the actual historical cicrumstances. 247 “Report of the Colonial Surgeon on His Inspection of the Town of Victoria, and on the Pig Licensing System,” Administrative Reports 1879 (Hong Kong, 1879). 248 Chong, “A Night Soil Collection Point,” 99. 135 and sought to diminish the risk of disease transmission through night soil as much as possible.249 Consequently, Hong Kong’s ties with the fertilizer system during the twentieth century were much less significant than those in Shanghai and Chengdu. The appearance of household waste in Hong Kong’s fertilizer system can probably be considered as insignificant; reference to this topic is basically absent in all consulted primary material while details on night soil treatment are reported on a regular basis. There is, however, one piece of evidence— coincidentally discovered during research at the Shanghai Municipal Archives, not in Hong Kong—which proves that fertilizer production from household waste did briefly exist in Hong Kong, albeit on a very small scale: between 1936 and 1940, a Hong Kong-based private British firm under the name of “Organic Fertilizer Co. Ltd.” produced its own fertilizer from local household waste by applying heat treatment and thermophile bacterial fermentation, a method which, from a ‘Western’ viewpoint, counted as new and advanced technology. It also offered its services to the International Settlement of Shanghai, which is how this piece of information found its way into a Shanghai file. Despite the fact that the firm was using the latest technology of the time, its local impact seems to have been less than groundbreaking, and the Shanghai Municipal Council did not express any particular interest—presumably because the process of fertilizer production was never really among its own concerns; it just cared about having its waste removed.250 The author of this thesis could not retrace whether or for how long this company continued production in Hong Kong through and after the Second World War, but apparently, the colonial government adopted the technology for night soil treatment after 1945—partly for the sake of producing high quality fertilizer to boost Hong Kong’s war-damaged agriculture and relieve food shortage but also as a means to reduce the risk of contamination from infected night soil. Post-war Hong Kong’s fast-growing population produced large buildups of excrements that Hong Kong’s sewer system was not yet equipped to process; the colonial sanitary authorities thus considered technologically supported fermentation a suitable way to prevent possible

249 Cf., for example, PRO, HKRS-41-1-1619. A series of photographs entitled “Work of the Government Sanitary Department (S.D.), later renamed Urban Services Department, Hong Kong, 1958: Conservancy Service, or disposal of human waste [...]” held at the Hong Kong Museum of History Resource Centre, documents the daily practice of night soil collection in Hong Kong in later years (HKMH, P1973.0048–0078). 250 SMA, U1-4-3254. 136 epidemics. The necessary infrastructure for this purpose had practically been left behind by the abovementioned company as well as by the Japanese, who had installed several large fermentation tanks for the same purpose during the occupation of Hong Kong (1941–1945). While these tanks were primarily used for night soil, the colonial sanitary authorities also considered them suitable for household waste; scientists consulted by the government suggested that night soil would be more potent as fertilizer if mixed with household waste at a ratio of 20– 25% night soil to 75–80% plant and vegetable matter.251 But although this strategy was considered very beneficial during the post-war years and into the early 1950s,252 it does not seem to have played a big role in night soil and waste management in Hong Kong later on.

WASTE COMPOSITION Waste composition was one of the most important factors besides waste volume when it came to handling urban waste accumulations efficiently, finding ways to use waste purposefully or eliminate it appropriately. Generally, historical waste composition in all three cities can only be described roughly on the basis of primary materials. Perceived as a merely administrative concern for most of the time, waste became controversial only when it caused severe problems that required prompt solutions. Thus, neither local governments nor the wider public invested much time into studying waste thoroughly: unlike topics like social conflict, injustice, development, or power struggle, waste only became political in the context of hygienic modernity. Although the topic could become controversial—the following sections as well as chapter 3 will address this in further detail—, waste, its nature and root causes was generally not a topic that needed to be discussed in great detail or analyzed deeply, which ultimately resulted in rather poor documentation of the nature of local waste. What can be said about waste composition in all three cities during the first half of the twentieth century is that a large part of it was organic and compostable while most of the non-compostable rest was environmentally unproblematic (like, for example, building debris, which did not contain majorly harmful components yet). Artificial or toxic components (such as plastics or chemicals) played a subordinate role. Certainly, as has already been addressed in the context of waste-

251 PRO, HKRS-41-170-1-350. 252 Ibid.; HKRS-41-1-6028. 137 polluted drinking water, the mere fact that certain proportions of local waste were organic did not automatically render them environmentally safe, but the core property that gives organic waste an ‘ecological advantage’ over other types of waste is its compostability. Without proper composting, however, contamination and toxicity from bacteria, algae, fungi, and other microorganisms may occur also in organic waste accumulations that become too large to decompose naturally. Chapter 3 will readdress this problem, providing further examples for organic waste that was discarded without previous treatment, leading to serious forms of contamination and pollution in all three cities. As indicated previously, it is not always clear whether and to what extent industrial waste is addressed in the primary materials consulted for this thesis. In many cases, archival documents and newspaper articles clearly refer solely to household waste, making occasional reference to ‘commercial’ and ‘construction’ waste, which formed categories of their own and were treated separately. Industrial waste is likely to have formed a category of its own during the first half of the twentieth century; because it was not regarded as a public health concern, it was not referred to in public health administrators’ action plans or newspaper reports on street sanitation. As has been already assumed in the previous chapter, public health departments do not seem to have been involved in the management of industrial waste at all during this time. It should be the subject of another study to locate sources that reveal the exact responsibilities and management techniques for industrial waste treatment during the late Qing and republican eras as this investigation would exceed the capacities of the present study, which focuses on the dominant factors in urban sanitary administration. At present, it can only be assumed that agreements on industrial waste treatment existed but fell under the responsibility of the companies that produced the waste themselves. If that assumption is correct, their ways of handling waste would be rather difficult to trace back and the attempt of researching it would be entirely beyond this author’s present capacities and resources. Certainly, it is also possible that some local factory waste was either counted into the “commercial waste” category or simply mixed in with household waste, depending on its composition. Because of the present uncertainties concerning the possible proportions of industrial waste, and given the fact that most sources consulted explicitly refer to household waste only, the following sections usually imply “household waste” when referring to

138 “waste” in general, except in cases where the exact category is specifically declared. Shanghai waste, according to records from the International Settlement, consisted roughly of five different categories, all of which could at least partly be recycled. These included 1) organic materials, parts of which were fed into the fertilizer system; 2) food residues, which partly belonged to the first category but were also collected by a group of private urban collectors who used to sell it as foodstuff for pigs; 3) ‘classic’ recyclables such as clothes, rags, or waste paper, which would be picked up by specialized collectors who resold them; 4) other recyclables such as coal ashes, which were collected by yet another group of specialized collectors (“ash merchants”, as they were named by the Shanghai Municipal Council) who used to resell them as fill material for road construction; and 5) “mixed” waste including glass, metal, animal carcasses, other forms of kitchen waste, and mineral matter, which were potentially recyclable as well.253 Given the fact that so much use could still be drawn out of these wastes, sorting them and separating the useful from the useless was crucial. However, the quantity and condition of recyclable materials in the mixture was always different, and different quarters of town produced their own typical waste composition. According to a note by the French Concession’s Administration Municipale of 1926, the even the population composition in different parts of town was mirrored in the local waste; allegedly, “European” garbage was relatively dry (containing more wood and ashes) while “Chinese” garbage was rather humid (containing mostly kitchen waste). Market waste was described as “wet”. Usually, high moisture content reduced the quality of certain recyclables.254 Waste composition in Chengdu seems to have been similar to Shanghai waste. Like the sanitary authorities of colonial Hong Kong, the provincial government of Sichuan had consulted a team of English-speaking agricultural experts in order to determine Chengdu’s prospects for optimizing local fertilizer production. The team compiled a report in 1940, which refers to the frequent appearance of animal bones and skins in the local waste, along with fur, hair, and feathers, vegetable matter, and eggshells, all of which being almost fully suitable for fermentation and fertilizer production. The second biggest waste category was “dust” from street sweepings, which, of course, did not only contain “dust” in its literal sense

253 SMA, U1-16-2129. 254 SMA, U38-1-2711. 139 but also leaves and other plant matter, straw, and particles of various other materials that had been dropped or fallen onto the streets. There were two major kinds of recyclables: mixed scraps that could easily be resold, such as bamboo and wood, paper, cloth, glass, metal, cotton, or even shoes; and scraps with mineral properties that could serve as building material, such as stones, ashes, bricks, tiles, and broken ceramics. Wood ash—Chengdu’s most common kind of ash of the time—formed its own category since potash could be extracted from it for fertilizer production, which is why it was collected separately from all the other waste and never mixed with it.255 The foreign expert team, according to its own chemical analysis of the local waste composition, found the waste perfectly suitable for fertilizer production and also suggested an ‘optimal’ ratio of waste to night soil for the ideal local fertilizer mixture, their recommended partition being “95% waste to 5% solid nightsoil, or 90% waste to 10% liquid nightsoil”, which indicates the importance of waste as a basis for fertilizing mixtures.256 With regard to the fact that nightsoil was the most nutrient-rich and therefore precious component in the fertilizer, this ratio suggests that nightsoil could be used more sparingly if large amounts of household waste were available. Much in similarity to Shanghai and Chengdu, early-to-mid-twentieth century waste in Hong Kong contained mostly “sullage, kitchen-slops, dry rubbish, dust, and ashes”, or, in more detail: vegetable matter, cooking refuse, road sweepings, rattan shavings, paper, and rags (among, probably, other materials that are not mentioned in the sources). Ashes, like in the other two cities, were traded by private collectors and thus never ended up in the daily municipal collections.257 It has to be assumed, however, that the large-scale recyclability of Hong Kong waste played a less prominent role than in Shanghai and Chengdu. Most importantly, as has been addressed in the previous passages, household waste did not play a prominent role in the Hong Kong fertilizer system. In addition, the Legislative Council probably did not have an interest in ‘losing’ much of its waste to local traders because they used most of it in their own extensive land reclamation program. Chapter 3.1. will address this program and the ways in which it contributed to local environmental pollution in detail.

255 SPA, 民 148-05-10132. 256 Ibid. Note the antiquated spelling for “nightsoil” in one word as featured in the original quotation. 257 PRO, HKRS-149-2-1424; “Government Notification No. 132,” The Hongkong Government Gazette, March 4 (1899), 336–337; 341. 140 THE CONTRACT SYSTEM

For the entire first half of the twentieth century, waste collection in all three cities was organized by the municipalities—or, like in Late Qing and Early Republican Chengdu as well as jindai Shanghai’s Huajie areas—, by the local police (before the proper foundation of a municipality). What differed was the degree of centralization of waste collection, which seems to have correlated with the respective organization of government, the scope of financial resources for public administration, and the local degree of ‘Westernization’ in public administration. Yu describes that prior to the twentieth century, waste collection in various locations all over China had been organized in a joint effort between different business associations (then in charge of street cleaning) and private waste collectors and enterprises (engaged in the large fertilizer markets around the urban centers). The collectors also performed preparations for fertilizer production, such as fermentation, drying, or sterilization of the waste material before sale. Yu points out that this system was not centrally organized and therefore did not render an entire city clean; while shop owners often joined capital to hire their own street cleaners who would remove waste in front of their shops, dwelling areas were not systematically cleaned up.258 At the core of this system was the transport of waste from the city to the countryside, which was a lucrative business for its organizers that managed to survive when foreign governments took over Hong Kong and parts of treaty port Shanghai in 1841/1842. Since the key structures for waste (fertilizer) trade already existed, the new foreign governments were able to make use of it: both the International Settlement and French Concession of Shanghai established a system of contract waste removal (chengbao qingyun 承包清运) in 1865 to have urban waste removed out of their jurisdiction areas by a handful of contractors (chengbaoshang 承包商) who were connected to the traditional fertilizer system. According to Peng, this model was later adopted by the Chinese government of Shanghai as well, however, at this point it is not possible to reconstruct when that happened exactly. It can thus be assumed that the contract model and the traditional model of private waste collection temporarily coexisted in Shanghai. After private collection had been replaced with the contract model, it became the sole approach to waste collection

258 Yu, “The Treatment of Night Soil and Waste in Modern China,” 54–57. Effectively, Yu is able to trace back the continuity of this system to Ming dynasty (1368–1644). 141 all over Shanghai for the entire jindai period; business was handed to those Chinese service providers who offered the best prices and were committed to sanitary law and the local sanitary authorities’ prescribed waste management strategies. The orders they received were kept simple and only required them to clean up all waste that had accumulated or had been stored in public areas, remove it along designated transport routes and discard it in waste dumps approved of by the local governments. Contractors deviated from contract norms relatively often, especially when they felt unobserved; because they were businessmen and not public health ambassadors, they were not necessarily committed to cleanliness themselves, at least in the eyes of the local governments. It was common in all parts of Shanghai that they willfully dumped waste into the local waterways if more had been produced than they could sell. The Chinese municipality’s sanitary authorities therefore used intermediaries (chuanya 船牙 or “boat middlemen”) in waste transport, whose sole duty it was to provide that the contractors did a proper job, and to collect high fees from them if they disregarded the regulations. River dumping was not only negatively affecting local drinking water quality but also causing problematic silting of the waters, making them difficult to navigate (see also chapter 3.2).259 According to a document from the International Settlement of 1920, several different contractors were hired by each municipality on an annual basis. They received a monthly payment for organizing daily waste collection, transport, and final disposal. Their service included, besides the provision of their own street cleaning teams, the supply of a sufficient number of transport boats, boat staff, and additional staff for loading and unloading the boats in different locations (the first of which being the waste docks by the riverside, the second being the waste dumps located outside of the urbanized dwelling areas). They were obliged to deliver as much material as they could to farmers in order to save space in the local landfills.260 Since the peasants’ demand for waste fluctuated seasonally, waste transport in Shanghai was adjusted to the most feasible seasonal approach: during the summer months, waste was simply poured into landfills—usually located alongside the local rivers right outside of the urban areas—from where peasants could pick it up against a fee. During all other months, when fewer

259 Peng, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming, 173. 260 SMA, U1-3-350. 142 peasants came out of their own initiative, waste was strategically shipped to the countryside and actively distributed there.261 Landfill ground normally had to be provided by the contractors themselves through land lease from the Greater Shanghai government, however, these spaces were still controlled by the municipal governments and supervised by their public health inspectors. 262 Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, Shanghai’s municipalities still disposed of their waste in separate areas each, with the main dumping grounds of the International Settlement being located “up Suzhou Creek”—an area which, at that time, was still far enough away from residential areas to not cause nuisance through bad odors, flies, or other unpleasant ‘side effects’ of landfilling. The other two municipalities used different sites. As the city grew and older landfill sites filled up, the main dumping grounds for all three municipalities were moved to Longhuazui 龙华嘴 (an older name for today’s Lujiazui 陆家嘴, where the northern edge of Pudong’s skyline is now located) in the 1920s, where there still was a lot of barren land. As of 1941, they had filled up and were again moved to Sanlintang 三林塘 (located further south and upriver in today’s Pudong xinqu 浦东新区, which, at the time, was still entirely rural).263 The provision of land was just as crucial for the maintenance of a contract as the proper execution of collection and transport. While the aforementioned acts of throwing parts of the daily waste collections into the river easily happened behind the public health authorities’ backs and offenders could often get away with a warning when caught in the act, failure to provide dumping grounds could lead to immediate termination of the contract. The French Concession’s Administration Municipale, for example, repeatedly replaced contractors who had lost their land

261 Peng, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming, 173. 262 SMA, U1-3-350. 263 SMA, U1-14-2806; Gong Ruihua 宫瑞华, “Jiu Shanghai de laji qingyun 旧上海的垃圾清运 [Waste Removal in Old Shanghai],” published on the Shanghai Municipal Archives Homepage. This homepage (http://archives.sh.cn) deserves special mentioning: although not all parts of its contents are regularly updated, it offers an unusually large amount of information and inspiration on how to explore and engage with the local collections to the public. Especially its section “Shanghai jiyi 上海记忆(Memories from Shanghai)”, which the above article is cited from, is one of a kind: it features a large selection of short research essays by various contributors that were written on the basis of the Archive’s holdings. Covering topic fields ranging from “Shen cheng bianqian 申城变迁(Changes in the City of Shanghai)” and “Shanghai renwu 上海人物 (Shanghai Personalities)” over “Song Hu zhanggu 淞沪掌故 (Historical Anecdotes From the Wusong River and Shanghai)”, “Shanghai zhi zui 上海之最 (Shanghai Superlatives)” and “Tushuo Shanghai 图说上海 (Shanghai Illustrated)” to “Shanghai shihua 上海史话 (Shanghai, A Historical Narrative)”, these essays cover a wide range of topics and provide inspiring first insights into the richness of the Archive’s holdings. 143 lease permits. Since neither the French Concession nor the International Settlement were willing to install landfills within their own jurisdiction areas—the inevitable proximity of such dumps to dwelling quarters would have caused multiple inconveniences and public health concerns, such as flies, rats, bacterial contamination, and bad smells—, the successful disposal of their waste depended strongly on the contractors’ ability to lease the required amount of land from the Greater Shanghai government (chapter 3.2. will address the effects inter- municipality conflicts could have on the provision of such dumping grounds). The Administration Municipale thus preferred to partner up with contractors who owned their own land and could reliably provide land supply. In contrast to the International Settlement, the Administration Municipale also made them directly eligible for river silting, forcing them to take a share in the financing of river dredging works. Such works fell due once per year around the waste docks as a measure against silting, which was especially bad around the waste docks since fallouts during the loading of waste from piers onto boats were inevitable.264 The Administration Municipale generally mistrusted its contractors and therefore observed cleansing work very strictly. All three municipalities strongly believed in the importance of supervision, however, it was not always possible to make the contractors personally accountable for mistakes made during the execution of waste collection. Glaise has importantly pointed out that the Administration Municipale found it much easier to supervise and fine the garbage workers for sloppy execution of waste collection and transport than to bother getting into a conflict with the contractors themselves. Being in one of the lowliest positions that local Chinese day laborers could possibly embody, they were an easy target— as Glaise proves, fining the garbage workers became a small but constant source of income for the French Concession’s chronically underfinanced public administration sector. Although convenient for the authorities, the frequent fines for even the smallest offences hit the workers especially hard. 265 Such unjust structures were facilitated by the fact that, during this time, none of the municipalities officially employed any of the garbage workers themselves and thus took little concern in the workers’ personal situation or their working conditions.

264 SMA, U38-1-946. 265 Glaise, Anne Frédérique, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française entre 1850 et 1950,” 170. 144 The profession of the contractor as a sort of ‘middleman’ between the municipal public health authorities and the rural waste trade networks did not exist at all in Chengdu. However, a variation of the contract system existed in Hong Kong. It is important to mention that in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, waste and nightsoil collection was handled by different contractors, respectively. Although most waste in colonial Hong Kong was used in land reclamation, the profession of the waste contractor still existed, which suggests that older, pre- modern structures of waste disposal were still present. By the early twentieth century, however, even the local nightsoil trade was already in decline. The main market place for the local fertilizer trade was Stonecutters Island (Ngong syun zau, Mand. Angchuanzhou 昂船洲), a small island facing the western shore of the

Kwai Chung (Mand. Kuiyong) 葵涌 area in the New Territories, just north of the Kowloon peninsula. Today, the island is a part of the peninsula as a result of land reclamation; back in the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century it was located exactly opposite one of the Hong Kong area’s most prominent historical dumping sites for household waste: Gin Drinkers Bay (Zeoi zau wan, Mand. Zuijiuwan 醉酒灣, today’s Kwai Chung Park), which locals also knew as Lap Sap Wan (Mand. Lajiwan 垃圾灣) or “Rubbish Bay” for this reason. 266 It was probably no coincidence that these two sites were located so closely together; prior to Hong Kong’s urban explosion of the mid-twentieth century, Kwai Chung and Stonecutters Island were far out of town but still conveniently accessible by boat from both the center of Hong Kong Island and the urbanized areas of Kowloon, making the area perfectly suitable for the turnover or permanent disposal of smelly matters, such as nightsoil and waste. Like the foreign municipalities of Shanghai, the Legislative Council of colonial Hong Kong began to entrust street cleaning and waste disposal in the urbanized areas of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon upon Chinese contractors around the mid-nineteenth century. All urban areas were divided into districts; one contractor was appointed to each district for the duration of one to several years, depending on the quality of his performance. Within their respective districts, the contractors had to supervise the daily removal of household and commercial waste from urban surfaces in exchange for a fixed monthly salary, which was to cover all expenses for street cleaning divisions and

266 “Government Notification No. 223,” The Hongkong Government Gazette, June 23 (1883): 549–551. 145 their required utensils. As per their contract, the contractors were subject to any sanitary officer’s directions and obliged to comply with the Sanitary Board’s regulations. They usually employed a high number of 34 to 56 street cleaning workers per district work unit for downtown areas and 4 workers per unit in the much less populated Hill District and supplied them with brooms, baskets, shovels and other hand-held utensils needed for the job.267 While the contractors provided their own boats for the transport of waste to reclamation areas or dumping sites designated by the sanitary authorities, “dust carts” (hand-held pushcarts used in the streets to transport street waste to and from collection points) were provided by the colonial government.268 Together with other street cleaning utensils, these tools were stored in downtown shelters provided by the government, which sometimes also functioned as cheap accommodation for street cleaners who had managed to obtain a spot in this prototype of ‘government housing’. Several generations of Hong Kong street cleaners lived in such accommodations until the 1950s. By permanently stationing workers in these simple shelters, the government could kill two birds with one stone: to make use of these low-working class members’ desperate situation as they were looking for affordable housing, by collecting rent from them and simultaneously proclaiming them responsible for the supervision and maintenance of all stored equipment as an additional compensation in return for being allowed to live in the shelters.269 The contract system was the only form of waste collection in both Shanghai and Hong Kong throughout the entire first half of the twentieth century, its legal form and organization remaining relatively unchanged in both cities throughout these decades. It shows how closely the organization of waste and nightsoil removal was linked to the Chinese fertilizer distribution system. The contract system can also be regarded as a relic of pre-modern urban waste management structures: beyond the fact that it was centrally organized, it was not much more ‘modern’ than the structures that preceded it. Certainly, a key difference was the much more centralized background organization initiated by the municipal governments. In contrast to the most common ‘Western’ approach to early-to- mid-twentieth century urban waste management, which had already gone over to applying ‘hard’ forms of waste management technology (such as industrialized

267 PRO, HKRS-58-1-18(50); HKRS-58-1-90(6). 268 PRO, HKRS-202-1-18; HKRS 203-1-26. 269 PRO, HKRS-202-1-18; HKRS 203-1-26; HKRS-156-1-195 A+B. 146 incineration, pulverization, controlled landfilling, etc.) on a large scale, the Chinese approach managed to free large cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong from waste with much more subtle and yet efficient technology, namely fertilizer production. Because of its efficiency, this approach remained surprisingly stable over many decades. It is an interesting example of an overall very simple waste management system, which was—in opposition to various industrialized approaches to waste management, none of which were very significant in China at the time—, characterized by elements of sustainability that resulted precisely from pre-modern cultural heritage. As chapter 2.3. will also address, the fertilizer system and its use of urban waste was sustained in mainland China even until the end of the Mao era.

2.2.2. Street Cleaning and Waste Removal, 1900–1949 As concerns the organization of daily street cleaning and waste removal, Shanghai and Hong Kong had relatively similar systems, although colonial Hong Kong was earlier at unifying techniques and setting standards that supported the efficiency of waste collection. Already by the late 1880s, street cleaning in Hong Kong was planned out in detail. It followed a fixed schedule and committed all work units to precisely prescribed tasks. Documentation of street cleaning regulations was also more thorough, which is why the Hong Kong Public Records Office holds significantly more descriptions of the organization of waste collection than the Shanghai Municipal Archives. Colonial Hong Kong and the municipalities of Shanghai both fixed certain procedures of street cleaning in their sanitary regulations. Street cleaning regulations in both Hong Kong and Shanghai’s International Settlement intended a more complex form of organization than in the other parts of Shanghai. It almost resembled a ‘choreography’ of scheduled actions that involved a higher degree of coordination between different task groups. Street cleaning guidelines in Hong Kong were the most rigid, inspired by the highly structured and rationalized waste collection and treatment techniques in London, which was, at that time, exceeded only by the outright ‘militaristic’ approach to street cleaning in New York City.270 Shanghai’s French Concession and Huajie areas followed an approach that was much less organized; in the case of the French Concession it can even be called

270 For a detailed description, see Jackson, Dirty Old London; and Nagle, Robin, Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City. 147 laissez-faire, while in the case of the Huajie districts, general structural problems of public administration led to a suboptimal performance in surface cleaning despite great efforts to achieve sanitary goals. The basics of street cleaning in Hong Kong and Shanghai (all municipalities) were relatively similar: street cleaning and waste collection was executed by the contractors’ own groups of garbage workers (usually called lajifu 垃圾夫, qindaofu 清道夫, lajichefu 垃圾车夫, or qingjiedui 清洁队 when referring to an entire division) on a daily basis at fixed times—usually early in the morning, sometimes a second time in the afternoon—along fixed routes that covered all public surfaces as well as public (and sometimes private) waste bins. Scheduled turnovers at waste storage points and the garbage boats to dock required all working groups to fulfill their duties exactly on time. Supervision of the process was accomplished by sanitary police officers. These officers were employees of the public health authorities and not actual members of the police departments, thus only authorized to supervise, not to impose sanctions. The main difference between the municipalities were the ways in which these regulations were put into practice: while the sanitary regulations in Shanghai’s French Concession and Huajie areas simply prescribed that all of this work be somehow accomplished regardless of the exact method, the different tasks of street cleaning and waste collection in the International Settlement and Hong Kong were precisely determined and assigned to specialized work units.

HONG KONG: COORDINATION AND CONTROL In Hong Kong, each district contractor was obliged to hire “six permanent sweeping gangs […] to consist of never less than Fifteen coolies in each”.271 Some of these “gangs” were assigned solely to street sweeping, others only cleared out drains and channels or exclusively emptied out waste bins. Special precautions were also taken for Hong Kong’s seasonally extreme climate: during subtropical rainy seasons or rainstorms, an additional number of at least 21 workers per district had to be positioned next to sewer traps in order to keep them free of surface waste and prevent clogging of the underground part of the sewer system. The Hong Kong geography with its steep slopes required special attention in this regard, as the region frequently witnessed raging downpour of rainwater

271 “Government Notification No. 223,” The Hongkong Government Gazette, June 23 (1883), 545. 148 that carried with it plant matter, stones, and other lightweight material fallen down or dumped uphill, which tended to quickly accumulate on leveled ground.272 The number of workers could be increased by up to 100 additional men on rainy days who helped prevent drains from getting clogged by surface waste. None of all those workers, however, were permanently employed; most of them were hired spontaneously from the downtown crowds of unskilled street laborers on a day-to day-basis, a modus operandi that economically profited from the cheap labor but, in reality, had downsides for both parties: for the garbage workers, it did not provide a stable employment or income; for the sanitary authorities, it failed to guarantee the composition of reliably experienced or committed working teams that could be relied on to deliver a constantly solid performance. Hong Kong’s sanitary authorities frequently noted that the execution of work was not to their complete satisfaction, yet they did not change the mode of employment before the 1960s. Instead, they set up a large catalogue of regulations for the street cleaners and introduced strict supervision early on: as of 1883, each cleaning division was accompanied by a few Chinese “watchmen” (one for every eighteen workers) with some command of English, who reported any misconduct to the sanitary police or “inspectors of nuisances”, who were usually native speakers of English.273 Inspectors of nuisances and Chinese watchmen usually co-operated in teams within the borders of the districts assigned to them. Having no executive power besides forwarding complaint reports and giving orders, the nuisance inspectors relied on the availability of a regular police inspector for imposing sanctions. 274 Ultimately, however, it was not the sanitary police but the contractors who accounted as fully responsible for the proper execution of street cleaning work. Unlike the French Concession’s Administration Municipale, the Hong Kong sanitary authorities regarded the street cleaning workers merely as assistants and ultimately judged the contractors upon their ability to provide sanitation and control their workers’ performance, while the workers themselves were generally not targeted by government sanctions.275 Having experienced that citizens tended to oppose strict rules and sanitary intervention to which they had not personally consented, the Hong Kong sanitary

272 Ibid., 548. 273 Ibid., 544. 274 Ibid. 275 Ibid. 149 inspectors had to become skilled communicators who had to persuade both the garbage workers and the public to comply with the sanitary regulations. Beyond their role as supervisors, they also functioned as teachers of public health standards. In fact, they were the only members of the sanitary administrative apparatus—not counting in occasional interventions by the regular police—who actively sought contact with the Chinese public and were recognized and acknowledged by them as official representatives of the public health system. Working together with the watchmen as their interpreters, the nuisance inspectors not only observed street cleaning but also controlled dwellings for nightsoil or waste accumulations, inspected public sewers, prevented passers-by from dumping waste at random, and checked the general sanitary condition of buildings. Much in contrast to the previously mentioned rigorousness of epidemic prevention measures (for example, in the way they were executed during the plague years), the nuisance inspectors were advised especially to commit to gaining people’s consent and understanding concerning street and household sanitation, instead of just threatening them with punishment.276 According to the primary sources consulted for this thesis, this system remained in place for the entire first half of the twentieth century, and even a few years beyond the Second World War. Even though it was resource intensive in terms of personnel and the sanitary authorities were not always convinced with the results of surface cleaning, the overall performance of this waste collection system seems to have been relatively effective. This can be concluded from the fact that neither archival documents nor historical newspapers in both English and Chinese language ever report serious or persistent problems with waste pollution inside the urbanized areas throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Minor or temporary problems are sometimes harshly critiqued in these sources, but that probably rather indicates that relatively clean conditions were the norm, thus some groups even perceived smaller pollution problems as very annoying.

SHANGHAI: STRUCTURAL IMPERFECTIONS

Although Shanghai had a much higher waste production rate than Hong Kong, its overall organization of waste collection was less structured. Even the International Settlement, which generally applied strategies that were similar to those in Hong

276 Ibid., 540. 150 Kong, was not able to reach the same level of efficiency in waste removal.277 The most central reason for this was the fact that the three different municipalities did not cooperate in waste management, which led to different standards of cleanliness and different degrees of efficiency in the organization of waste removal throughout the city. These differences sometimes resulted in arguments if any one municipality’s poor performance negatively affected the others, especially when they experienced waste pollution on their respective jurisdictive territories that they had not caused themselves. A common phenomenon seems to have been river silting in various locations, caused by the loss or willful dumping of waste material before or during transport. As a document published in the Shanghai Zongshanghui yuebao 上海总商会月报 (“Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce Monthly”) first reveals in 1922, it was especially the Chinese municipality that blamed the International Settlement and the French Concession repeatedly for “carelessly” allowing large amounts of waste to enter the river. After all, navigable waters were a matter of great economic importance for the port city of Shanghai and therefore a keen interest of local investors. The complaint reads: 其最為障礙者。厥維租界垃圾每日輸送入河。運載之人沿送傾棄。即不傾棄而堆置河畔。雨淋風吹終必洩河內。

What obstructs [hydraulic engineering at the Wusong River, Wusongjiang shuili gongcheng 吳淞江水利工程] the most is that the foreign concessions thoughtlessly let rubbish get into the river on a daily basis. The carriers take it to the shore where they dump it, and even if they don’t just dump it, they pile it up on the river bank where it is drenched by rain and blown about by the wind, until—ultimately—, it is inevitably washed into the river.278

The International Settlement took notice of the problem but did not feel immediately responsible, blaming the fault on its contractors’ lack of responsibility. The conflict was still not resolved even ten years later; in May 1932, the China Press readdressed the issue, stating that none of the

277 There is, unfortunately, no way of making a source-based statement about whether or to which degree the International Settlement and colonial Hong Kong exchanged experiences on street cleaning techniques or critically evaluated each other’s performance in urban sanitation. Although it is likely that each municipality was familiar with the other’s sanitary administration system, there is no record of correspondence on sanitary matters between them, or evidence for either of them following the other’s example or trying to perform better, etc. 278 “B, wenjian: zhi gongbuju wu guwen qing jianyi jiang zujie laji yun zhi Pudong jian (bu yi yue shiqi ri): fulu Wusongjiang shuili gongcheng ju zhuren Chen Enzi jun laihan (yi yue shiqi ri) B 、文件:致工部局五顾问请建议将租界垃圾运至浦东缄(补一月廿七日):附录吴淞江水利工程局主任陈恩梓君来函(一月十七日）,” Shanghai Zongshanghui yuebao 上海总商会月报 2.4 (1922): 8–9. 151 municipalities were ever willing to hold themselves responsible for river silting, but that all would blame the other two without ever taking action.279 Another few years later (1939), the Municipal Council of the International Settlement finally did acknowledge responsibility in an internal document, however, it expressed that the circumstances would not allow for an immediate solution. According to its statement, rising waste production and a severe lack of space in the quickly growing International Settlement complicated both waste transport and disposal, which, as the report claims, led to an unintended affection of the local waters, especially since all of the Settlement’s already overflowing dumps were located along the riverbanks. At this point, in the course of an intensifying political conflict, the Chinese municipality had already stopped accepting any disposal of waste from the concessions on Chinese territory (see chapter 3.2. for details on this conflict). In its resentment, the International Settlement’s Municipal Council refused to support the Chinese Municipality in solving any problems that concerned the waterways, which, although commonly used, were officially under Chinese jurisdiction. Although the Municipal Council’s own River Conservancy Board was involved in the supervision of water quality as well as in river construction and water engineering, the International Settlement effectively had no independent authority in river matters and used this as an excuse to refrain from any further engagement in this problem.280 The International Settlement did not disclose its own inefficiency in surface cleaning openly. Although the basic organization of waste removal was very similar to colonial Hong Kong, a higher degree of unreliability in the general performance had been bothering the Municipal Council since the beginning of the century. In the early 1900s, large waste accumulations were still a ubiquitous sight. In only a few years since the late 1800s, waste accumulation had increased by over 50% due to urban growth, which suddenly made waste production much more visible. According to a government report of 1901, roadside channels along the alleyways of the International Settlement filled up so quickly with waste that residents began to empty out their garbage and wastewater directly onto the roads because the channels were regularly clogged. At that time, street cleaning in the International Settlement was organized by two different institutions: in theory, the

279 “Each Municipality Puts Blame On Others for Garbage Menace,” The China Press, May 29, 1932, displayed in SMA, U1-16-2133, n.p. 280 SMA, U1-14-1054. 152 Public Health Department was principally responsible for waste collection and disposal, and the Municipal Engineer’s Department for street sweeping, but in reality their tasks overlapped and the work was not divided efficiently. They were also not optimally coordinated, with large time gaps between street sweeping and waste collection—oftentimes, garbage piles that the street sweepers had prepared for collection were not removed for hours. In similarity to Hong Kong, street cleaning units were divided into task groups that focused uniquely on either waste sweeping, street watering, gulley cleansing, or road inspection. These groups were also appointed to districts (Western, Central, Northern, Eastern, divided into a total of eleven subdistricts). Altogether 25 street washers, 80 gulley cleaners, 184 garbage collection workers, and 64 horse workers (horses were used for pulling transport carts) were employed in daily street cleaning in 1905, which made for a total of 353 individuals cleaning up the International Settlement on a daily basis.281 However, their accomplishments were often compromised by the fact that waste got scattered again after they had already piled it up for removal, or by waste that was dumped by residents after they had already swept the streets clean, and when the waste collection service was especially delayed, the overall appearance of the Settlement could quickly turn messy. In regions where both departments cooperated especially badly, the Public Works Department sometimes had to step in with additional cleaning service.282 Eventually, it took over full responsibility for street cleaning and waste removal in 1923 due to the fact that it performed much better than the other two Departments, yet did not have the success the Municipal Council had hoped for. Years later, in 1929, it still referred to its own waste management approach as “crude and primitive”.283 Indeed, nothing about the basic techniques had changed, except for the fact that motorized trucks were now used for faster transport on land.284 Prior to the Public Works Department’s takeover, some improvement could be witnessed when the International Settlement first installed public waste bins in 1908. Although many residents tended to ignore the bins and continued to simply place their waste outside their doors or next to the bins—some police officers took on the habit to ‘retaliate’ such behavior by putting misplaced waste back onto residents’

281 SMA, U1-14-6238. 282 Ibid. 283 SMA, U1-14-2806. 284 SMA, U1-3-788. In the application of motorized vehicles, Shanghai was ahead of Hong Kong, which first started using them in the 1940s (PRO, HKRS-41-170-1-350). 153 doorsteps—, ultimately, the difference the bins made for the reduction of street waste accumulation was noticeable.285 As of the 1930s, archival documents from the International Settlement no longer refer explicitly to ongoing problems with waste removal, which might indicate that the Public Works Department was able to get them under control. Another indication for this is that the leading local newspaper in English language, the North China Herald, shifted its focus from street waste on water pollution (see chapter 3.2 for details). The French Concession, as mentioned already in chapter 1.3, did not have a uniform waste collection system—or even public waste bins—before 1920. But unlike the Huajie areas, which did not have an institutionalized municipal government before 1929 and therefore faced structural obstacles to the uniformation and performance of public works and services, the French Concession was not actually ‘lacking’ any structural preconditions for systematic sanitary services. The previously discussed administrative weakness of the French authorities may serve as a feasible explanation for their rather ‘laissez-faire’ waste management approach. Like in the International Settlement and Hong Kong, sanitary services in the French Concession were executed in a district-by-district fashion (divided into East, Central, West, and “routes extérieures”), however, they were supervised by only one to two sanitary inspectors per district. These inspectors, according to Glaise, were extremely busy individuals. They had a large variety of other duties besides the observation of waste collection including the control of food safety, the granting of business licenses, tax collection for the sanitary services, the collection of data on fatalities, the inspection of public bathrooms, the control of sanitary standards in buildings and streets, and rat eradication. Consequently, they usually had few time capacities to ensure that the streets were cleaned properly.286 Besides the lack of observation, the most central reasons for insufficient waste removal in the French Concession financial restrictions were understaffing and missing equipment: in the session protocol of a meeting of the Administration Municipale’s waste management committee of June 14, 1929, it is mentioned that the Concession would need 75 three-ton lorries to smoothly manage daily waste transport, while in fact the street cleaning divisions were only provided with 22, along with only 50 hand-held

285 SMA, U1-3-788; U1-14-1054. 286 Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française de Shanghai,” 149– 150. 154 wheelbarrows. They also had significantly less personnel than the International Settlement; 66 workers were appointed to accompany the lorries, 50 to the wheelbarrows, making a total of only 116 workers, which was less than a third than the International Settlement employed. Obviously, the French Concession had a smaller total surface, but it is clear that it did not make large investments in surface sanitation. On top of these restrictions, the Administration Municipale’s contract system had crucial flaws; contracts only provided the removal of daily waste up to a certain maximum—in opposition to the International Settlement, which had fixed the total removal of surface waste in its contracts. As of 1928, the Administration Municipale began to notice that the daily 355 m3 of waste that one of their contractors was obliged to remove fell a hundred cubic meters short of the waste that was actually produced. Since the amount of produced waste rose on a yearly basis, the Administration was forced to constantly revisit their contract details while still unable to keep up with waste accumulation.287 Besides these shortages in workforce and equipment, a lack of administrative rigorousness and competence among the sanitary officials also contributed to poor efficiency in waste management. The French sanitary authorities also had difficulties popularizing their mission to clean up the Concession; conflicts on hygienic conduct with the Chinese population frequently occurred. The European population, in turn, often felt tempted to boycott sanitary regulations out of a general lack of respect for the French authorities. Finally, the Administration Municipale showed a distinct lethargy with regard to improving the sanitary infrastructure: even some of the most crucial installments of public health stability, such as the waterworks, were only developed in reaction to direct impulses from the Municipal Council of the International Settlement.288 On the positive side, this laissez-faire approach prevented any kind of ‘hygienic oppression’ against the local Chinese. Glaise shows that the French public health authorities never forced sanitation upon any of its citizens by means of intrusive measures or harsh punishment. Nevertheless, the poor sanitary conditions were frowned upon by many residents and complaints about dirty streets were frequent. Even when the sanitary services were reinforced in 1930 and inspection was

287 SMA, U38-1-2711. Certainly, the French Concession only had a little less than half the population of the International Settlement as well as a smaller surface, yet, viewed in proportion, the International Settlement still profited significantly from more human workforce for waste removal. 288 Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française de Shanghai,” 177. 155 intensified, the contrast between the sanitary goals expressed in local legislation and the actual condition of the urban environment only became more obvious to the more educated concessioners; the fact that countless citizens were never prevented from notoriously ignoring the public waste bins began to annoy them. In reaction, various individuals began to speak up—according to Glaise, even the Chinese population of the French Concession was confident enough to criticize the Administration Municipale frankly and openly (so far, the author of this thesis has found no evidence of such open criticism in sanitary matters for either the International Settlement or colonial Hong Kong). As Glaise finds, citizens of the Concession, for example, “did not hesitate to address the French authorities if they thought that either the police or the sanitary services were abusing their power”. 289 They did the same as they began to feel that sanitary maintenance was getting out of hand: complaints about waste pollution that residents addressed to the Administration Municipale in the French Concession are abundant in the holdings of the Shanghai Municipal Archives. During the years of 1935 to 1936 alone, they sent hundreds of letters, reporting, for example, the garbage workers’ failure to remove street waste accumulations entirely. They also complained about neighbors disregarding sanitary regulations and placing garbage outside at the wrong times or dumping it randomly. Some even reported themselves, apologizing for having made mistakes, while others indignantly defended themselves against their neighbors’ accusations and threatening fines if they found them to be unjust. Complaint letters in Chinese on such matters were about equally abundant as letters in English or French. Most individuals called upon the sanitary authorities to finally take action, strengthen pollution prevention and punish offenders more strictly. Especially house owners complained that they could not rely on their neighbors’ and tenants’ cooperation and that as loyal payers of tenancy rates and service charges for waste collection, they felt offended by the constant filth in front of their houses. These letters show that parts of general public—at least, judging from the form and duct of the letters: the middle and upper classes—were generally well aware of the local need for change and expected the Administration Municipale to take responsibility and improve the appearance of the Concession.290

289 Ibid., 169, 177. 290 SMA, U38-5-482. 156 In comparison to the foreign districts, sanitary services in the Chinese- administered parts of Shanghai were underregulated from the beginning, insufficiently supervised and irregularly attended to, with the result that some districts were cleaned up systematically while others were not—these problems have already been addressed in chapter 1. Although some authors, such as Liao and Luo,291 who have compiled a detailed overview on jindai waste management in the Huajie areas, reasonably stress the significant achievements made in the course of the institutionalization of public health administration and increasing rationalization of waste management between 1927 and 1937, the author of this thesis tends to agree more with Peng, who brings the Weisheng ju’s limited scope for action and the general structural problems of public administration into consideration. Among these problems were, most importantly, the difficulties in persuading the local citizens to fully comply with sanitary law, but above all, a lack of financial means to actually build a sanitary strategy at the practical level.292 Some informative details on the organization and coordination of daily street cleaning in the Huajie areas are presented by Peng as well as by Liao and Luo: as Peng shows, as of the 1910s, street cleaning and waste transport divisions roughly followed the International Settlement’s approach in task organization, street cleaning schedule, and connection with the fertilizer system. Waste bins were put up and fixed daily waste collection routes were prescribed, however, unless there was intense supervision, the actual coordination of street cleaning remained relatively unstructured.293 Liao and Luo go into further detail, focusing especially on the reorganization of waste management after 1927. According to their findings, two of the Weisheng ju’s departments—Street Cleaning (Qing dao gu 清道股) and Sanitation (Qingjie gu 清洁股)—were occupied especially with waste management, with the Qingdao gu being officially responsible for the planning of waste removal and disposal, the coordination of work and the supply of utensils as well as the control of food markets, while the Qingjie gu took care of street cleaning and fertilizer storage inspection as well as the methodological planning of street cleaning.294 Much in similarity with the foreign settlements, street cleaning was appointed to district task groups, which comprised of a total of

291 Liao and Luo, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua.” 292 Cf. Peng, “Shangban yihuo shiban.” 293 Peng, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming, 64. 294 Liao and Luo, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua, 30. 157 467 workers (1928) employed by contractors.295 Their number was only a little higher than what the International Settlement had, however, they covered a much larger urban territory. Each work unit was appointed one foreman and another one to eight additional supervisors per district, since the Weisheng ju deeply mistrusted the workers whom they believed to be regularly engaged in drinking, gambling, opium smoking, or aggressive confrontations with their colleagues during work hours. The Weisheng ju tried to influence discipline through rewards and punishment: workers would start at a minimum wage of 10 yuan each month, but in the case of excellent behavior, they could get a top-up of 1 jiao to up to 1 yuan every month. Every other year, if evaluated positively, each individual could potentially be rewarded with another salary raise of up to a maximum of 15 more yuan per month. Failure to deliver a solid work performance would result in fines and loss of salary top-ups.296 There is a conspicuous lack of information concerning the public reception of street cleaning procedures and the Weisheng ju’s sanitation performance in primary sources; even the Shenbao reported about this topic only very occasionally, and when it did, articles did not reveal many details on street cleaning procedures or performance, and they were seldom openly critical about local sanitation standards. Indeed, many articles on waste management published in the Shenbao seem to have functioned rather as a medium to propagate and explain new sanitary regulations than to independently discuss them. This impression is supported by Wang, who shows that the Shenbao proactively supported the municipal sanitary agenda, especially during the early phase of the New Life movement (see below).297 Phrasings that point to the expression of criticism, such as “waste problems” (laji wenti 垃圾问题) or “difficulties with street cleaning” (qing dao kunnan 清道困难) are used only very occasionally in titles of Shenbao articles of the mid-1920s to mid-1930s; instead, the most- featured topic with relation to waste treatment is recycling (feiwu liyong 废物利用, or “utilization of waste”). Only a handful of articles discuss the root causes of waste management problems in an analytical and tentatively discursive manner.

295 Ibid, 26, 28. 296 Ibid., 26. 297 Wang Xiaohui 王晓辉, and Chen Shipei 沈世培, “1934 nian shehui yulun dui Xin shenghuo yundong de huiying… yi ‘Shenbao’ wei zhongxin 1934 年社会舆论对新生活运动的回应——— 以《申报》为中心,” 72. 158 According to these articles, published in the Shenbao between 1928 and 1933, running costs (jingfei 经费) and the Chinese municipality’s general shortage of financial resources for public works were to blame especially for an “unsatisfactory” (buzhou 不周) equipment with the street cleaning utensils the garbage workers urgently needed. But as the biggest problem they identified the local public’s deep-rooted aversion against sanitary control: the Shenbao claims that the “average city dwellers” were unwilling to “bend” to the public health authorities’ orders (yiban shimin, bu neng qu ti dangju zhe 一般巿民，不能曲體當局者), often “willfully” throwing their garbage on the streets (wangwang jiang laji renyi qingdao 往往將垃圾任意傾倒 [emphasis added]) as an act of protest. 298 This description, of course, primarily reflects the municipal government’s assessment of its citizens’ behavior, which is probably biased and may conceal oppressive techniques and use of force when regulating sanitary behavior. It is also likely, given the fact that public health education was lacking behind, that people only had a limited understanding of the restrictive regulations’ purpose. Overall, the Shenbao ascribes problems with waste management to overpopulation, a lack of industrialization and technology (such as incineration), a lack of public health education, and a lack of application of “science” (kexue 科学 ) in the municipality’s waste management approach. “Scientification”, according to the Weisheng ju’s own statement, would particularly include a reorganization of street cleaning according to waste production statistics; at the time, street cleaning units were still staffed according to district surface—in fact, however, the districts with the highest waste production rates were not necessarily those with the largest surface area. In addition, “scientification” would also aim at setting targets for the minimum amount of waste that should be removed per day and worker as well as for taking a more ‘engineered’ approach to waste disposal: for example, by properly covering up the landfills at Longhuazui, thus making them safer, more ‘sanitary’, and less prone to leakage, flies, and rats. 299 Obviously, from these statements it can be concluded that none of these practices

298 See, for example, “Banli qing dao kunnan qingxing... Jingfei zhichu...Banli jishou 辦理淸道困難情形經費支絀辦理棘手,” Shenbao 申报, 19 July, 1928, 21; “Weisheng ju zhuyi qingdao gongzuo,” Shenbao, 21 February, 1929, 21. 299 “Shi Weisheng ju zhuyi shimin weisheng... Hu nan zhenliaosuo xia yuechu kaimu... Chuli laji caiyong kexue fangfa... Chuangban gongmu jihua jixu jinxing 市衛生局注意市民衛生滬南診療所下月初開幕處理垃圾採用科學方法創辦公墓計劃繼續進行,” Shenbao 申报, 23 September, 1933, 12. 159 had been applied systematically before the 1930s, and on the basis of the available primary source material it is hard to determine how far the aspired ‘scientification’ actually advanced until 1937, when the hostilities with Japan disrupted public administration all over Shanghai (see below for further details on wartime waste management). The author of this thesis assumes that the generally limited availability of primary sources (such as archival documents and newspaper articles) on waste problems in the Huajie areas could be linked to an issue of “face” (mianzi 面子) and struggle to build self-confidence with regard to the foreign districts’ lead in public health administration. While it would have caused loss of face to practice self-critique and publicly discuss the various mechanisms that stood behind the Chinese municipality’s weak performance in urban sanitation, some face could, in turn, be gained by pointing out the fact that waste treatment was not always handled entirely smoothly in the foreign concessions either. As a title search in the Shenbao electronic database using the keywords “concessions” (zujie 租界) and “waste” (laji 垃圾) quickly reveals, there is, in fact, a variety of articles that criticize waste management problems in the foreign districts. The same face- preserving mechanism may also be one of the reasons why archival documents that discuss concrete problems with waste management are much harder to come by than documents that treat, for example, sanitary regulations, or basic organizational questions (such as where to open up a dumping site). Another, perhaps more obvious reason could simply have been the newly founded urban administrative institutions’ intense preoccupation with other public health problems that were far more pressing than waste collection—especially human healthcare and disease prevention needed to be given priority over clean streets.

CHENGDU: UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND LACK OF EDUCATION

For Chengdu, specific information on waste collection procedures is missing almost entirely for the period between the early 1900s and the 1920s. Not only do local archives fail toprovide details, but so do historical local newspapers of that time period; even secondary literature on the topic is very sparse. More records are preserved from the 1930s onwards; their direct connection to intensifying waste problems as of this period cannot be mistaken. With regard to the general scarcity of sources and the lack of detail in them, it can be assumed that waste was

160 a topic that was not very thoroughly documented by Chengdu officials (or journalists) during most of the jindai period. It is therefore uncertain whether waste did or did not cause notable problems during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The allegedly high level of cleanliness in Chengdu’s streets that was reported by foreign visitors—as Stapleton refers to it—indeed suggests a lower level of waste problems during the well-regulated Late Qing era,300 but during the turbulent years of the Warlord period, while the Republican government had little control on the local level, sanitary control is likely to have gone downhill temporarily, as it was the case in countless places all over China.301 Furthermore, despite being relatively ‘provincial’, Chengdu was not really a small city to begin with and thus experienced accelerating waste production due to its rising population density. As can be concluded from the higher frequency of reports in local newspapers that begins with the early 1930s, the population growth of the 1930s and 1940s caused a proportionally higher degree of waste pollution in relation to previous decades, which gradually made problems with waste management harder to overlook. For example, the Xinxin xinwen frequently reported on waste pollution between the early 1930s and late 1940s, which suggests that local critics of public administration began to perceive waste pollution as a continuous problem. As the city began to grow at a much higher speed, waste accumulation began to challenge the established methods of street cleaning. Upon its foundation, it had been the Chengdu Police that was in charge of waste collection alongside the eradication of vermin, the disinfection of premises, and the implementation of public health campaigns.302 Waste removal was organized by the district police offices, each of which hired its own team of street cleaners (also called qingjiedui 清洁队) who officially counted as lowest- rank police personnel and technically had a higher status than the garbage workers of Shanghai and Hong Kong, who were employed directly from the streets. Supervision of the street cleaning service was carried out directly through police personnel with no other administrative units involved; the previously mentioned Weisheng shiwusuo did not take over the responsibilities for before the late 1930s. It is likely that extreme financial shortage was one of the reasons why

300 Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 150. 301 Cf. Yip, Ka-che, “Health and Society in China: Public Health Education for the Community 1912–1937,” 1197–1982. 302 Chen, “Qing mo minguo shiqi jingcha yu chengshi weisheng xiandaihua yanjiu,” 14–15. 161 street cleaning in Chengdu was organized in a minimalist fashion and, uniquely, relied on the public’s contribution: while the street cleaning units’ tasks were restricted to street sweeping and waste collection only, residents were required to sweep in front of their own houses and pile up heaps of household waste and surface dust in the roadside gutters for the street cleaners to pick up. The street cleaners, of which the whole city only employed a total number of 204 (1940), passed by all streets once per day, swept all public surfaces, and transported the waste to designated spots in each district that were reserved for waste storage. Interestingly, this system had a built-in recycling component; local waste traders were allowed to pick through the garbage heaps piled up in these storage locations and take out everything that could be repurposed, whereupon farmers could pick up their free share of organics for fertilizer production. The latter usually only happened in districts with direct water access because the farmers traveled by boat. It was also common that they picked up waste that had been left to sit for some time to naturally ferment, in the case of which they had to pay a fee to the police. Since fermented waste was highly requested, large heaps in different states of decay were always present at the downtown waste collection stations. Everything that was ultimately left behind by recyclers and farmers was sent to the municipal dumping grounds outside of the city walls (for example, at Baiyaochang 百药厂 in the east of Chengdu), some of which were reclamation areas where waste was used to dry out ponds or to level out uneven grounds.303 Municipal street cleaners in Chengdu were recognizable by tags on their clothes that read “qingdaofu 清道夫 (street cleaner)” and the usual equipment of wheelbarrows, baskets, and brooms, all of which they had to provide themselves (this being one of the indicators for the municipal government’s severe financial shortage).304 While this system was simple and cost-efficient for the municipality, it was far from effective. One can easily imagine the downsides of the Chengdu approach to waste collection, such as residents doing a sloppy job cleaning up around their front yards, or waste scattered about by the seasons while sitting in open storage areas for weeks. Liu points out that an understaffing of the street cleaning units was severely affecting the efficiency of their work during the second half of the jindai period; calculating with the amounts of waste to remove

303 SPA, 民 148-05-10132; “Shifu gou di nian mu yu duiji zhazi 市府購地廿餘畝堆積渣滓子,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, May 16, 1937, 9. 304 Ibid.; Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 135. 162 during the 1940s, so he claims, each worker had to move the equivalent of 800 kilograms of waste material per day in order to ensure that the entire waste that daily accumulated in Chengdu be properly removed. Obviously, this task was physically difficult to accomplish, especially since it came on top of street sweeping. Thus, it can be concluded that a substantial part of those 800 kilograms were probably never removed. During the last decade of the Republic, waste collection was not only insufficient but it was practically not accomplished at all. As Liu has found, Chengdu residents regularly complained about the local cleanliness standards—less out of concern for rising levels of pollution but rather because any failure on the street sweepers’ side increased their own obligatory contribution to street cleaning.305 But despite all odds, the Chengdu Police was striving for conditions that were as sanitary as they could possibly be: it was the municipality’s vision to transform Chengdu into a provincial role model for the young Chinese Republic that was supposed to represent modernization, progress, and the strength of an inland provincial capital, especially in comparison with China’s coastal cities, which were the local authorities lauded for their high developmental status.306 Observing these conditions, local newspapers began to criticize Chengdu’s waste problems—which they did on a more frequent basis than Shanghai newspapers, perhaps out of the motivation to stimulate developmental competition with the east coast; one could assume that the spatial distance between Chengdu and the coast (with its developed foreign communities) allowed for greater freedom to publicly express concern and challenge the authorities than it was possible in the Huajie areas of Shanghai. Local newspapers also kept the public informed whenever the police introduced new measures to handle pollution. In November 1930, for example, it installed permanent street supervision and tripled the daily collection times in order to ensure that no surface waste was left behind. Having no funds for additional personnel, however, the police simply had the street cleaners shoulder the extra work. Besides having to sweep two times more often than previously during the workday, they were also ordered to actively observe passers-by for violations of the sanitary regulations, especially random waste dumping, and to file reports whenever they witnessed such cases. They were also obliged to observe each other while being followed

305 Liu, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan,” 142. 306 Cf. Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, 218, 249. 163 around by police officers at all times who would take notes on each individual worker’s cleaning performance. The summary of their work reports was to be evaluated each time before the workers received their monthly salary.307 New regulations attempted at a better coordination of household waste disposal with the street cleaning schedule. Each time the street cleaning units entered a street, they were supposed to shout, “Pour out your garbage (dao laji 倒垃圾)!” upon which households were allowed to empty their bins on the street.308 This required householders to stand ready whenever the cleaning units passed by, which they rarely did. Although the police installed public waste containers in 1930, these did not seem to help very much either. Two years later, it was reported that people still preferred to conveniently dump their waste at random times and to wash out their nightsoil buckets directly outside their houses; police control was not effective enough to prevent them from doing it. Upon this observation, the municipal government advised the police to introduce heavy punishment.309 But despite repeatedly issuing new bans, the police was unable to get waste pollution under control, not even when it partnered up with the Bureau for Social Affairs (Shehui ju 社会课) for the formation of citywide epidemic prevention committees (fangyihui 防疫会), which were supposed to help back up sanitary inspection. Heaps of unattended, decaying waste were not only “chokingly smelly” but were also identified as “most likely to transmit disease” (chouqi xunzheng, zui yi chuanran bingzheng 臭氣薰蒸，最易傳染病症), especially during the summer months. This problem was especially real since so much waste was stored inside the city for fermentation. Newspaper articles also frequently criticized that not only waste was lying around but also cadavers of rats that people had trapped and killed, then thrown them outside. The police was worried about possible contamination, sending out special service units to spot the rats and clean them up separately from the regular street cleaning service, but these measures did not

307 “Shifu jiji zhengqi shijie qingjie... zhuang ding qingjie guize tongling zunshou you bufu quangao zhe ping zhong gongfa 市府積極整飭市街清潔——裝定清潔規則通令遵守有不服勸告者憑衆公罰,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 16 October, 1930, 10. 308 Ibid. 309 “Shizhengfu zhuyi jiemian qingji... yanjin ge jie jumin qingdao wuhui zhazi 市政府注意街面清潔——嚴禁各街居民傾倒污穢渣滓子,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 20 March, 1932, 9; “Gong’an ju zai jin suidi Qingdao zhazi… Tang you guyi weifan zhe ji chuan’an zhong fa 公安局再禁隨地傾倒渣滓子倘有故意違犯者即傳案重罰,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 4 April, 1932, 10. 164 actually contribute to significantly raised cleanliness levels.310 The problem of waste pollution prevailed until far into the 1940s, when the Xinxin xinwen still reported that many places were not cleaned up sufficiently. Although some progress had been achieved, people were still not standing behind the municipal government’s sanitary goals. Rats and other animal cadavers, urine, kitchen waste, and food waste from restaurants remained a ubiquitous sight despite strict punishment for sanitary offences. For example, Wang mentions that even a relatively small delict, such as urinating onto the street, could cost a working class individual a whole day’s wage, or sometimes a day in jail. Yet in most cases, as sanitary education lacked far behind the regulations, as Wang also points out, Chengdu’s citizens did not even understand the necessity of public hygiene. The local population’s widespread unawareness resulted in countless fines as well as in frequent arguments between policemen and citizens who had been fined, but seldom in substantial changes of behavior.311 The Xinxin xinwen prognosed in an article of June 1942 that the problems might not resolve “unless citizens began to prefer [cleanliness over pollution] themselves (yao shimin ziji ai hao 要市民自己爱好)”, which would have to be achieved through sufficient education.312 The locations that were most affected by all kinds of random dumping were restaurant areas (especially polluted), streets with access to a well (especially sensitive to contamination), and surface water channels and gutters (yingou 阴沟; especially prone to clogging and likely to transport waste into the river).313

COMPARISON

With regard to the aforementioned tendency towards severe epidemics that Chengdu experienced due to its restricted drinking water resource system, the difficulties getting the waste even off the streets were a serious matter indeed. The fact that these problems could not be resolved throughout the entire Republican period, are representative of inland China’s struggle to establish sound standards in public health development, and it clearly shows organizational deficits in comparison to Shanghai’s International Settlement and colonial Hong Kong. On

310 “Waidongnan zhazi langji;” “Chengdushi weisheng qiantu bukan wen… jian shu fuyi wu yan kanjian,” 7. 311 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 135–136. 312 “Jiemian de qingjie 街面的清潔,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 23 June, 194. 313 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 135–136; “Jiancha qingjie 檢查清潔,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 21 May, 1940; “Jiemian de qingjie.” 165 the other hand, similarities with Shanghai’s Huajie and, to some extent, even the French Concession, are obvious. As the comparison of these cases shows, not only was a thorough organization of waste collection services important to achieve higher standards of surface cleanliness but the compliance of local citizens—ideally based on education and a sense of understanding for the importance of sanitation—was almost equally crucial. Interestingly, in the French Concession, where the previously presented complaint letters prove that the principles of sanitation were widely understood, people were still not willing to fully comply with the sanitary regulations, mostly out of carelessness and disrespect for the government. In Shanghai’s Huajie as well as in Chengdu, a variety of structural problems was causing the pollution, most notably a severe lack of funds for sanitary administration as well as a low level of sanitary education among the local population. It is important to distinguish clearly between the lack of funds and deficits in the overall structure of the waste collection system; the author of this thesis believes that both Shanghai’s Huajie areas and republican Chengdu would probably have been able to execute street cleaning much more effectively, had it not been for the fact that sanitary administration was lacking so much personnel and equipment. Although certain shortcomings in the structural organization of street cleaning in both localities are evident, the described lack of performance was clearly not the result of the sanitary authorities’ ignorance or unwillingness to make the necessary effort, but very much related to the general underdevelopment of the Chinese public administration sector. With all of these problems unsolved, ultimately neither Shanghai nor Chengdu were, at this point, equipped with a waste collection system that was suitable to process the growing waste accumulations of the future (in other words, the second half of the twentieth century). In Shanghai, the disadvantage of administrative division into three different systems was impossible to overcome; in Chengdu, the quest for more effective methods of waste removal continued to resemble an ongoing “unsystemized social experiment,” as Liu has described one of the general main characteristics of the Republican public health sector.314 As the following chapter will show, all of these problems were left as heritage for public health administration in the young People’s Republic.

314 Liu, “Fei zhiduhua shehui shiyan.” 166 2.2.3. The Influence of the New Life Movement (Xin shenghuo yundong) and War Time Sanitation

Before leading over to the second half of the century, it is important to look at two historical episodes that left their imprint on waste treatment: the New Life movement (Xin shenghuo yundong 新生活运动, officially: 1934–1945, technically: 1934–1937) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). It is well known that the New Life movement, one focus of which it was to improve sanitation and the appearance of cities, distinctly promoted sanitary development while the war reversed previous achievements in this sector. However, most previous studies on this topic focus on entirely on health care and pay little attention to the significance of urban waste management for the construction and destruction of public health standards during the 1930s and 1940s. This section thus provides an overview on the state of street sanitation during this period, investigating the range of influence the New Life movement really had on the improvement of waste management as well as the scope of waste pollution that the war caused. While the general achievements of the New Life movement, especially its contribution to civil society building and consciousness raising for public health problems, are widely acknowledged, some historians argue that it ultimately came to nothing and that its initial success already faded only one year after its launch. Dirlik identifies three levels of reasons for failure: On the organizational level, strict dependence from authoritarian party politics and control tied down the executing organizations and separated them from the people. On the conceptional level, people soon realized that they would not receive the political participation they had been promised, but that, in fact, a large part of the movement was really about power consolidation for the Guomindang. On the ideological level, the Guomindang made it clear what kind of moral behavior it expected from the citizens, but failed to deliver a vision of what the nature of the propagated “new life” ultimately meant and what major cultural changes and new political order there were to be expected from it. Because the connection between its focus on “traditional moral values” and transformation into a “new” social order was so blurry, the whole purpose of the movement was disconcerting to many.315 Liu

315 Dirlik, Arif, “The Ideological Foundation of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution.” 167 points out another weakness of the movement, which was its authoritarian use of force. Due to its use of extreme state control, the movement has been compared to European fascism in the past, although this judgment is now considered as controversial, not least because Chiang Kai-shek’s attraction to fascism and authoritarianism was strongly criticized by some of his own fellow party leaders, including Wang Jingwei 汪精卫 (1883–1944, later to become head of state under the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1940 as the leader of the Chinese puppet regime under Japanese occupation), who regarded the forceful implementation of campaigns as power abuse and persuaded Chiang to favor moral appeal and persuasion over the use of force. Nevertheless, as Liu also remarks, the movement showed its most significant success results wherever strict police enforcement was widely used. In Liu’s words, it created “a new domain of discipline between morality and law” through enhanced police control.316 Deeply rooted in the original idea of “hygienic modernity” (as described by Rogaski), the movement was based on the belief that the ‘health of the nation’ and its route to modernization would express itself in public and mental health. It aimed at the implementation of high social morals and a high level of visible sanitation, especially in urban environments, and thus placed public health propaganda at its core. Although the entire motivational basis of the movement was ideological, Dirlik argues that this does not diminish its practical effects and the improvements it provoked in “seeming[ly] banal concerns” such as street sanitation.317 Other authors agree that the movement had positive practical ‘side effects’ but go beyond Dirlik’s statement, pointing out that some of these effects were much more long-lasting than earlier studies have acknowledged. Prominently, Federica Ferlanti argues that the movement had a lasting impact on the evolution of citizenship and national identity through the integration and mobilization of a wide-ranging variety of social actors such as benevolent organizations, native place associations, women’s circles, schools, universities and other educational institutions, work units and youth organizations, among many other, which prevailed until the late 1930s, into the 1940s, and even beyond. This new solidarity prepared the Chinese society to stand together in preparation for the war against Japan. Especially in centers of wartime mobilization, such as

316 Liu, Wennan, “Redefining the Moral and Legal Roles of the State in Everyday Life: The New Life Movement in China in the Mid-1930s,” 34, 46, 49–50. 317 Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundation of the New Life Movement,” 945–946. 168 Shanghai and Chengdu318, the local Associations for the Promotion of the New Life movement (Xin shenghuo yundong cujinhui 新生活運動促進會)—the main organs that helped implement the campaigns locally—played a crucial role in helping to keep the Nationalist administration and local civil society integrated.319 Zhang adds that the movement provided a spirit of revolution, and social alignment along with mass education, rule of law, a somewhat ‘militaristic’ discipline in the target fields of the movement, and more rationalization in administrative matters, all of which turned out to be beneficial during the war. Not least, the mobilization of various social groups and organizations that could provide relief during the hostilities was crucial, as it secured donations to support the military, helped to provide medical services for wounded soldiers, air shelters, and refugee relief, and created a better network of general medical services.320 Due to the movement’s close connection with public health and sanitary development, cleanliness campaigns—and in particular, street cleanups—were among the first initiatives implemented when the movement was first launched in 1934. Street cleanup weeks were announced at least once every year; they involved activities in which the entire urban population had to participate and contribute to street cleansing and waste removal. According to the observation of the Council of International Affairs’ representation in Nanjing, the cleanups were not restricted to the streets alone but were often extended to rivers, freeing them from the residues of decades of river dumping. This kind of work was usually done by workers employed specially for this task.321 Campaign activities were supported by educational programs such as speeches, educational parades, publications, advertisements, films, exhibitions, radio broadcasts as well as special activities involving local political figures, such as the mayor of Shanghai picking up a broom and cleaning a street himself.322 But as Liao and Luo have first uncovered for the case of Shanghai, the year 1934 was not really the starting point for cleanup campaigns, as these already started several years earlier. So did

318 The Nanjing government had to evacuate to Chongqing in 1938 and Sichuan province became the new center of resistance. 319 See the articles by Ferlanti, Federica, “The New Life Movement in Jiangxi Province, 1934– 1938,” 962; and “The New Life Movement at War: Wartime Mobilisation and State Control in Chongqing and Chengdu, 1938–1942,” 189, 193. 320 Zhang Xuecai 张学才, “Xin shenghuo yundong zai kangzhan zhong de zuoyong 新生活运动在抗战中的作用,” 25–26. 321 Council of International Affairs Nanking, China, The New Life Movement, Information Bulletin II.22, December 21, 1936, 205–207. 322 Liao and Luo, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua,” 28, 30. 169 various other educational initiatives: for example, the distribution of public health-related publications and films in Shanghai already peaked in 1933, with almost four times as many copies/releases as one year later. 323 Chengdu newspapers also concretely report of waste removal campaigns that started years before the official launch of the New Life Movement; the Sichuan ribao, for example, announced in 1930 that Chengdu’s first comprehensive street cleaning campaign and public health exhibition was planned for the first two weeks of May, which was supposed to give the entire city a long-needed thorough cleansing.324 Certainly, public health activities during the years 1934 and 1935 outweighed the previous years in their total number. For example, almost ten times more educational public speeches were held in Shanghai in 1934 (3,905) than in 1933 (405). But the most notable category was the number of household inspections, which rose almost four times from 2,646 home visits in 1931 to a peak amount of 10,370 visits in 1934 in Shanghai alone.325 These inspections, carried out all over the entire country, represented the most oppressive side of the movement, and they required a previously unseen assignment of regular and military police, soldiers as well as civilians acting as additional supervisors. As Liu reports, in the smaller city of Nanchang (where the movement was first launched) alone, the number of inspectors on mission in 1934 was over 700. However, as forceful as these inspections were, they systematically brought the shortcomings of local public health infrastructures to light. In Shanghai, the inspectors found “insufficient facilities for environmental hygiene, too few street sweepers, poor road conditions, people living in shabby shelters, uneducated residents, and unwillingness to accept persuasion along with repeated wrongful conduct even after correction and punishment“, summing up all problems related to urban sanitation that the Guomindang was critical of and that New Life movement had been set up to tackle.326 It is importantto mention, however, that forceful inspections, although Chiang Kai-shek considered them to be an inevitable measure against uncleanly habits, were not intended to actively invoke humiliation or shame—even though “shame” was an actual educative concept in

323 Ibid., 28. 324 “Qingjie yundong yu weisheng zhanlan 清潔運動與衛生展覽,” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 17 April, 1930, 7; “Benshi qingjie yundong buri jiang shixing 本市清潔運動不日將實行,” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 29 April, 1930, 7. 325 Liao and Luo, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua,” 30. 326 Liu, “Redefining the Moral and Legal Roles of the State in Everyday Life,” 34, 50. 170 the movement. The concept of “sense of shame (chi 耻)”—besides propriety (li 礼 ), righteousness (yi 义), and honesty (lian 廉—was one of the main principles of the movement that had been inspired from Confucian values. All of them were supposed to ideally lead to the kind of “national morality (guoyou daode 国有道德)” that the movement sought to evoke in people. However, Chiang did not understand chi it as an oppressive concept; on the one hand, it was intended as a kind of ‘glue’ for the social hierarchy, a concept that was supposed to help every individual know their place in society and their proper behavior towards their superiors and inferiors, thus stabilizing the nation. On the other hand, however, chi was also supposed to provide a sense of China’s humiliation as a nation, which, in the eyes of the nationalist leaders, had been caused by colonialization and developmental backwardness that made China inferior to the West and Japan. Although chi legitimized and manifested authoritarianism and a top-down distribution of power, power abuse and violence were not a part of its definition. 327 Nevertheless, the household inspections were forceful without question, reminiscent of the violent way in which sanitation was forced upon working class households in Hong Kong around the turn of the century. As Ferlanti mentions, cleanliness campaigns also had a tendency towards oppressive drill when physically forcing the population to take part in street cleanups. Such measures often aroused citizens’ disapproval or denial to perform well among in these activities.328

SHANGHAI After the first year of the movement, its initial dynamic slowed down and the authorities turned more towards persuasion than oppression. The movement, although it never accepted any politically motivated active bottom-up contributions, even became slightly more integrative: Liao and Luo point out that as of 1935, people in Shanghai were invited to hand in feedback letters with the Police Department in which they could comment on their own impression of specific campaign results. According to Liao and Luo’s findings, this positively affected waste pollution control: the fact that people were now allowed to express their own opinion on pollution and campaign performance, even if it was only in

327 Huang, Grace C., “Speaking to Posterity: Shame, Humiliation, and the Creation of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nanjing Era Legacy,” 150. 328 Ferlanti, “The New Life Movement in Jiangxi Province,” 984. 171 letters, raised their personal consciousness for waste problems and strengthened their own opinion on cleanliness matters.329 Although it is questionable that this effect would have reached the majority of the Shanghai society—bearing in mind the high levels of poverty and illiteracy—the author of this thesis supports the assumption that this may have been one another long-term positive outcome of the New Life movement. But also the street cleaning campaigns were an element that was relatively consistent over the years even after other initiatives of the New Life movement had already slowed down. In Chengdu, newspapers reported about yearly cleanup campaigns throughout the entire 1930s, the war years and even until 1948; so did the Shenbao.330 Despite these achievements, campaign activities related to street sanitation carried out in the context of the New Life movement were not able to counterbalance waste pollution during the war years. Due to the massive destruction that, for example, Shanghai suffered from the fighting, public administration and sanitation were left in a state of emergency. When the Japanese troops entered Shanghai in 1937, the fights left several parts of the city severely burned, the local industry shattered, and the local economy destroyed. Refugees kept swarming in (Glaise mentions 50–70,000 during the month of July 1937 alone), and between 200,000 to 300,000 Shanghai workers were left without employment literally overnight due to the immense destruction that local factories and workshops experienced. Additional damage was done to central public utilities such as power stations, waterworks, and public transport.331 Although the foreign districts were not taken before 1941 (International Settlement) and 1943 (French Concession), street sanitation was at its worst during the war years even in the foreign parts of Shanghai. Not only had the fighting disrupted administrative organization but also the pre-war composition of personnel. For the

329 Liao and Luo, “Cong Huajie laji zhili kan Shanghai chengshi de jindaihua,” 33. 330 See, for example, “Benshi juxing qingjie yundong 本市舉行清潔運動,” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 20 October, 1939, 3; “Chengdu de qingjie yundong 成都的清潔運動,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 22 April, 1941; “Weisheng yundong zhou xian suqing laji 衛生運動週先肅清垃圾,” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 7 August, 1948; “Qingjie yundong yu gonggong weisheng 清洁运动与公共卫生,” Shenbao 申报 22 April, 1936; “Weisheng yundong dahui jinri xing kaimuli bing xing da saochu yundong 衛生運動大會今日行開幕禮並舉行大掃除運動,” Shenbao 申报, 1 June, 1944; “Kuoda qingjie yundong jinqi juxing yizhou 扩大清洁运动今起举行一週,” Shenbao 申报, 15 May, 1949. 331 Ahlers, John, “Shanghai at the War’s End,” Far Eastern Survey 14.23 (1945): 329; Hsü, Shuhsi, Japan and China (1938), 39; Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française,“ 195; Hanwell, Norman D., “Shanghai’s Worst Crisis” (1938), 170. 172 Hongkou district, it was reported that the 160 street cleaning workers that had previously been appointed to this area had now dropped down to 40 individuals who were hardly able to keep up with their tasks; in other districts directly controlled by the Japanese, prisoners of war were engaged in street cleaning activities to counterbalance the lack of staff. The lack of personnel also made waste removal more expensive: the number of contractors had diminished and Japanese contractors stepped in, using the war situation to their own favor and raising the fees for their services significantly.332 The International Settlement’s Municipal Council received countless letters from disgusted (mostly European and Japanese) residents who complained about the pollution. They also reported that their neighbors seemed to be losing their discipline—according to a large number of letters dating from 1938, residents were “blindly” throwing waste out of doors and windows, onto sidewalks, into other peoples’ entrances, and sometimes even on people’s heads, exposing everybody to nuisance, smell, and breeding flies.333 As of the early 1940s, the situation got worse: more complaint letters express that waste was sometimes not removed for days, piling up “hip-high” while people kept throwing their waste into gulleys and side channels and garbage smell mixed in with odors from public toilets that were likewise “beyond control”. Many accused the Public Works Department to be watching on and remaining unjustifiably “inactive”.334 In the French Concession, which had co-operated with the Japanese and Wang Jingwei’s puppet government since 1937 due to the political partnership between Japan and the Vichy regime in Paris, the situation was not much better. The sanitary administrative organs of the French Concession were given emergency trainings to learn how to cope with the new challenges, which were exacerbated not only by the refugee crisis but also by the fact that most newcomers originated from the countryside and were unfamiliar with urban sanitary standards and sanitary regulations.335 As can be expected, the Huajie areas suffered exactly the same fate: During the war years, their sanitary condition deteriorated severely. There were problems with excrement pollution due to an insufficient supply of public

332 SMA, U1-14-2807; U1-4-3688. 333 SMA, U1-16-2138. 334 SMA, U1-14-2591. 335 Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française,” 198. For war time politics in the French Concession, see Bergère, Marie-Claire, “L’épuration à Shanghai (1945– 1946). L’affaire sarly et la fin de la concession française. 173 toilets, randomly dumped waste, irregular waste collection, stuffed sewers, stagnant water, and bad smells, which the sanitary police was incapable to control. According to records of correspondation between different parts of government, a severe lack of street cleaning staff was the biggest problem in these areas of Shanghai as well. Waste collection still took place; like before, it was organized by the Weisheng ju, which continued to closely observe the performance of its qingjiefu. But the work units had become so understaffed that they had to leave large amounts of waste behind, which built up especially in roadside channels and local streams, clogging them up so much that extensive dredging works became necessary. As a countermeasure against the lack of workforce, the municipal government did hired about two hundred refugees as well as prisoners of war to support street cleaning and public toilet maintenance services. But the general public seemed to be working against the street cleaners, having gone back to old habits of random waste dumping. Lacking also the necessary sanitary inspectors to keep people’s throwaway behaviors under control, the government appointed groups of boys scouts to step in for the missing personnel and point out unsanitary behavior to the police.336 Not all waste accumulating in the occupied areas posed a public health threat; indeed, lots of valuable materials, too, ended up in the open. Especially after the initial bombings, the city was covered in rubble that contained recyclables, especially where factories had been hit. Eyewitness reports—renarrating subjective observations—mention how the Japanese, well aware of the ways in which they could benefit from these bits and pieces, since especially metal scraps and metal objects of any kind could be used in their domestic iron and steel production—, stripped the ruins of anything that promised to have any remaining value, and confiscated machinery with the help of “hundreds of coolies”. The local industries considered this severely damaging, since it forced them to rebuild business while missing key components of their equipment. The public noticed the looting, but did not dare to protest. When addressed by the local press, Japanese spokesmen allegedly stated that they were collecting “waste” for disposal or temporarily storing goods for protection from looting, and pretended to be helping to “tidy up” the city. In reality, most of the material was shipped to Japan. However, the Japanese were not the only ones trying to make use of the

336 Peng, Gonggong weisheng yu Shanghai dushi wenming, 104–106; SMA, R51-1-300; R50-1- 382-17; Q400-1-3611. 174 ruins: large crowds of locals swept through them, too, in search for materials they could sell to increase their income.337 As the war progressed, additional sources of income became ever the more important due to general scarcity and hunger caused by the city’s lockdown, grain rationings, and inflation—Wakeman Jr. has vividly described the effect that this situation had on all kinds of smuggling businesses as well.338 Although it seems that most of the New Life movement’s positive influence was forfeited in the war, Glaise has observed that there was one important difference: as she states, the war years saw previously unseen levels of cooperation between the three municipalities in general public health matters, and not only between government units but also with and between various benevolent organizations and private individuals who made donations or stepped in for support, especially in the humanitarian and medical services. While the foreign concessions had cooperated previously, direct partnership with the Chinese municipality and common access to the support of various Chinese civic organizations was a novelty, which had most certainly been positively influenced by the New Life movement’s efforts to activate various societal groups for targets of national concern. For the first time in the history of semi-colonial Shanghai, the entire city basically faced the same public health challenges, which made previous developmental differences between the municipalities in this field temporarily less visible. The commonly acknowledged necessity to prevent a deterioration of public health standards as much as possible enabled them to temporarily overcome certain inter-municipality boundaries that previously stood in the way of a uniform development.339 It is likely that some of the new structures created in the course of in these initiatives also facilitated the rebuilding of sanitary services after the concessions seized in 1943, when the Wang Jingwei regime took control over the city.

CHENGDU Chengdu was also bombarded heavily by the Japanese between 1938 and 1942, which forced countless residents to withdraw to the suburbs.340 However, at the same time, the previously mentioned influx of refugees caused the city to grow

337 Hanwell, “Shanghai’s Worst Crisis,” 172; Hsü, Japan and China, 39, 48–53. 338 Wakeman Jr., Frederic, “Shanghai Smuggling,” 116–153. 339 Cf. Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française de Shanghai,” 199. 340 Wang, The Teahouse, 54. 175 unproportionally and at a fast pace. Combined with the general disorder caused by war destruction, these developments put Chengdu’s sanitary services under a similar pressure as Shanghai experienced it. But since Chengdu’s waste collection system was so much simpler, and because part of was based on the obligation of local residents to help clean the streets, street sanitation does not appear to have been equally disrupted as it was in Shanghai. The contamination of drinking water and Chengdu’s lack of technological equipment for waste management (such as an incinerator) continued to pose ongoing problems, which the Weisheng shiwusuo intended to further resolve.341 Nonetheless, the general documentation of waste management during the war years as represented in archival documents and local newspapers does not report any disastrous decline in Chengdu’s street cleaning performance, and there seem to have been no significant changes made to the running system during those years. Certainly, there was no improvement to the prewar performance, either; after all, substantial problems with waste removal had existed in Chengdu for decades, and financial reserves had always been too low. The sanitary authorities did occasionally suggest measures for improvement, however, these were not directly related to the impacts of the war. Usually, such suggestions concerned the possibilities to finetune the coordination of street cleaning procedures with the equipment that was already available, for example, by putting up more public bins, controlling the efficiency of street cleaning workers better, or keeping track of how much waste was actually produced.342 Public health campaigns in the tradition of the New Life movement were still launched throughout the war; one successful format was the staging of cleanliness competitions (qingjie jingsai 清洁竞赛) in which each urban district had to beat the others out in surface cleaning and demonstration of sanitary behavior. The source cited in this context refers to a competition held in 1941, however, it does not reveal how successful it was and whether it faced any kind of particular obstacles. What sources like this do reveal, however, is that elements of the New Life movement and its spirit concerning waste treatment and street sanitation were still episodically relevant even in the middle of the war.343 Of course, it is unclear for how long the effects of such weeklong campaigns lasted after their completion, especially with regard to the fact that the convincing power of the

341 Cf., for example, SPA, 民 113-02-3062. 342 Cf., for example, SPA, 民 113-02-3063. 343 SPA, 民 113-02-1634 (this source refers to a cleanliness competition of 1941). 176 Guomindang had already significantly deteriorated. But since sanitary regulations in Chengdu were less complex than in Shanghai, people’s role in waste removal was more pronounced, and since much less paid personnel was needed to upkeep the running system, it was probably much easier to upkeep Chengdu’s waste collection system throughout the war years than it was for Shanghai, even though Chengdu experienced similar effects of destruction, hardship, inflation, hunger, and general scarcity.344

WAR TIME SANITATION IN HONG KONG The implications of wartime sanitation in Hong Kong shares various similarities with Shanghai and Chengdu. Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese from 1941 to 1945, experienced its own refugee crisis and faced similar problems as the other two cities did. As the British colonial administration was temporarily disintegrated entirely, sanitary services were disrupted while people suffered from overcrowding and hunger. Over twenty-two thousand dwellings were destroyed by bombing, shelling or neglect during the initial fighting and occupation period. Hong Kong could, like Shanghai, have been handed over to Wang Jingwei’s puppet regime but ultimately stayed under Japanese military rule, since it served as a marine base; this was also the reason why there was no attempt to turn Hong Kong into a Japanese colony, as it had happened to Taiwan and Korea. Law and order were restored quickly after the defeat of the British to keep the Chinese society in a stable state but civilian leaders were forced to cooperate.345 As the colonial government was removed from office, public health services went into the hands of the Japanese military government. Generally, historians agree that the Japanese were very invested in health care and the prevention of epidemics during the occupation. As Carroll stresses, their efforts, which resembled almost a form of sanitation “mania” in some ways, aimed especially at protecting the health of Japanese soldiers above all, but nevertheless, they prevented the outbreak of some serious diseases in a better way than the British authorities had been able to accomplish it.346 Still, these achievements were restricted to the immediate protection of human health, and the same hygienic principles were not

344 Cf. Mitter, Rana, China’s War with Japan 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival, 381, 276. 345 Endacott, G.B., Hong Kong Eclipse, 124–125; Lindsay, Oliver, The Lasting Honour: The Fall of Hong Kong 1941, 193. 346 Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 124; see also Tang Zhuomin 唐桌敏, Qi feng ku yu——Cong wenwu kan ri zhan Xianggang 凄风苦雨——丛文物看日佔香港, 194. 177 applied to the maintenance of the urban sphere, with the result that the condition of public utilities deteriorated quickly. Endacott shows that at the beginning of the attacks, [t]here were damaged drains and derelict houses, and garbage heaps piled up in Kennedy Town, Queen’s College and the Southern Recreation Ground as well as some back streets, breeding flies and cock-roaches. Rats foraged among this garbage for food. From 10 December 1941, night-soil had to be dumped in the harbour since lighters could not leave port during the fighting.347

Although some order was restored after the fighting stopped, sanitary conditions did not recover and waste pollution spread quickly over the whole city. Due to the disintegration of the British colonial government, wartime sanitation is poorly documented in the holdings of the Hong Kong Public Records Office. There is also very little information to be gained from local newspapers of the time; not even the South China Morning Post covered the topic in great detail. Some information, however, is revealed, for example that large amounts of rubble were never removed after the initial bombings but “left abandoned in partly demolished houses and in the roadway”, where they mixed in with “garbage dumped by householders”. It was common during the war years to get rid of waste outside and in derelict building sites. One article expresses that the Japanese left “a mess” behind when the troops withdrew: accumulated garbage and dysfunctional drains and sewers dominated the cityscape, flies and mosquitoes were overbreeding.348 Snow describes the general condition of Hong Kong’s wartime infrastructure as “pitiful”: The harbour was clogged with rusting hulks and unexploded mines. Thousands of buildings lay derelict, engulfed by vegetation and crawling with rats. The roads were unlit by night, and the road surfaces gaped with potholes […]. But the problem was mess and neglect, not destruction.349

Although highly bureaucratic and strict in their regulations, the Japanese sanitation inspection and sanitary services were understaffed. Even hospitals were not cleaned up—at least the ones that were not reserved for the Japanese were largely neglected. Nightsoil collection service was so understaffed that for the first time, the Japanese employed women as additional collectors, who were

347 Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 145. 348 “Street Cleansing: Big Scale Job Organised by Authorities,” South China Morning Post, 20 September, 1945, 1; “British Military Administration, Hong Kong,” South China Morning Post, 26 April, 1946, 11; “Relief Work,” South China Morning Post, 13 September, 1945, 1. 349 Snow, Philip, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation, 263. 178 called je hoeng fu 夜香妇 (Mand. yexiangfu, “women of night fragrance”), after the aforementioned common euphemism for nightsoil (yexiang). Street garbage accumulated everywhere in streets, back alleys, and drains since it was removed irregularly due to a lack of collection vehicles.350 Nevertheless, despite an initial shortage of personnel, an ongoing food crisis and a serious endangerment of the public order through local triad activity, the British colonial government, as soon as it was restored, was able to reintroduce systematic sanitation in the form of the prewar system relatively quickly, with most public health services and the most important public utilities already back in place by February, 1946.351 Hong Kong, too, had been stripped of valuable resources in the meantime: both the colonial government and local companies reported of the same kind of looting that had happened in Shanghai, which now complicated quick restoration: the city had been entirely stripped of iron which the Japanese had confiscated in large quantities. As a result, the sanitary authorities were missing the majority of their street cleaning equipment, including metal garbage bins, metal components of public toilets (such as a number of 51,000 iron bins and 50,000 iron latrine pans that were listed for replacement in November 1945), and even simple buckets. Local companies that received orders for new production in 1946, however, had been stripped of their metal supplies as well and could not immediately deliver. One company stated that out of the 51,000 bins that the government needed, they were able to make about 2,000 with the material accessible to them but suggested to recycle scrap metal in large quantities to fill in the supply gap, such as old oil drums.352 As a comparison of all three cities during the war years shows, higher levels of organization and rationalization of sanitary management do not seem to have constituted and advantage for street cleaning under war conditions. They even seem to have had the reverse effect; systems that strongly relied on administrative resources such as municipal personnel, work equipment, and supervision (Hong Kong and Shanghai) seem to have performed even worse during the war years than Chengdu, which was able to sustain its system in its prewar simplicity. As a result, the loss of sanitary standards during the war years was much more drastic

350 Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 146, 273; Lindsay, The Lasting Honour, 201; Tang, Qi feng ku yu, 202. 351 Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 265; Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 271–273. 352 PRO, HKRS 170-1-691. 179 in Hong Kong and Shanghai than in Chengdu, where an initially lower level of street sanitation did not deteriorate much further. Although the war years constituted a significant disruption of any practical developments made previously in street sanitation and temporarily compromised people’s morals, they did not destroy already existing knowledge on sanitary institution-building or the general positive effects that prewar sanitary education had had on sanitary awareness. As the following chapter will show, Mainland China’s waste management system under Communist rule could draw from the achievements of the republican era and the New Life movement, which were transmitted beyond the war.

2.3. Postwar Structural Changes in Urban Sanitation, 1949–1980: Reorganization and Campaigns

The year 1949 marked a turning point in the development of the waste management systems of Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, which clearly distinguished prewar from postwar approaches. Although some older structures remained in place, massive societal and economic transformations that took place during the postwar decades influenced material culture so strongly that new ways of throwing away, treating waste, and dealing with pollution were shaped. A watershed developed also between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong; it dissolved almost all structural similarities in waste management that had previously existed between both societies. At the same time, this watershed also reduced many of the previous differences in the level of organizational and technological development between Shanghai and Chengdu; despite continuing to face different preconditions for waste management, the overall approach to waste management in both cities became much more similar and comparable, which immediately makes them more representative for Mainland China as a whole. The new contrast to Hong Kong was caused especially by the divergence of the different economic paths that both societies took: the construction of a communist society in Mainland China on the one hand and Hong Kong’s upsurge as a striving capitalist economy on the other was obviously deeply influential on material culture, resource management, throwaway habits, and waste disposal strategies. This section explores the emerging contrast between Mainland China and Hong Kong by investigating the basic ways in which the organization of

180 waste collection and removal changed in ways that catered to the rationale of both economic systems respectively, and the political ideology or doctrine behind them. Leading to Part II of this dissertation, which lays special focus on the historical manifestation of pollution-generating versus sustainable patterns in local waste management strategies, this section also critically investigates and juxtaposes key strengths and weaknesses of the new basic structures that characterized communist and capitalist approaches to waste collection and management organization on the local level. These basic structures, as the most fundamental level of each local society’s individual approach to waste management, formed the basis of their ability to deal with mass waste accumulation, which both Mainland China and Hong Kong saw developing during the mid-to late twentieth century. While chapter 3 will investigate both Mainland China’s and Hong Kong’s responses to mass wastes and waste pollution from a technological angle, this chapter starts out by examining perceptions, assumptions, and organizational approaches concerning the nature of waste and how it should be treated. It also determines how well each respective local society was equipped to understand, acknowledge, and cope with waste pollution on an organizational level. As this chapter will show, all three cities failed at this attempt, however, in their own unique and different ways.

2.3.1. Everybody’s Responsibility: Street Cleaning in Communist Campaigns

The influential factor that most impacted post-war urban waste management on the Chinese Mainland was the transformation from institution-based policy implementation to the expression and manifestation of political guidelines through mass campaigns. With reference to the observations made in chapter 1, the key differences between these two policy styles lie particularly in the following divergence: both the Republican and the Communist system sought to build a strong state, but while the Republican state’s core was rule of law, the communist state’s core was the integration of the masses. After 1949, policymaking revolved around the incentive to exhaustively integrate the entire public into state building through mass mobilization; policy development was explorative and not necessarily tied closely to national law. As concerns policy implementation in the public health field, the young People’s Republic was characterized especially by one ongoing campaign, the

181 “Patriotic Health campaign (Aiguo weisheng yundong 爱国卫生运动)”. In many aspects, this campaign echoed the incentives and spirit of the republican New Life movement but historians have recognized it for its major successes than they have the New Life movement. The Patriotic Health campaign left a deeper imprint on the Chinese society due to vital co-mechanisms with societal transformation under communist rule, especially the ubiquitous mass mobilization for all kinds of political goals, in the context of which campaigning itself was the major expression of political culture. Nationwide campaigns that were directly related to the Patriotic Health campaign, such as the aforementioned Anti-schistosomiasis campaign or the “Eradicate the Four Pests campaign (Chu si hai yundong 除四害运动)”, are recognized for their long-term effect on disease prevention and control, although the unintended and fatal environmental consequences of the Four Pests campaign have, of course, been intensely discussed and sharply criticized.353 Most mass campaigns of the Mao era are justifiably denounced for their technocratic character and the extreme emotional exhaustion they caused among the population. Nevertheless, as Bennett has pointed out early on, their potential to—at least temporarily—evoke real and intrinsic motivation in people and to offer them real and diverse possibilities to participate politically should not be underestimated or go unmentioned.354 Still, the campaign format as a policy instrument was weakened by three structural limitations that inhibited true success from the start: firstly, the ‘campaign spirit’ promoted by the Party transported the idea of consecutive societal transformation, yet all the fundamental transformations of the young communist state—such as, for example, land reform or collectivization—, could, in fact, only take place once. Consequently, all campaigns that followed the initial ones were determined to become less and less radical until they represented not much more than minor adjustments to an already majorly transformed societal structure. This dynamic significantly devalued the power and legitimization of campaigns over time—as Bennett explains, the turn towards processes of “inner transformation” (such as political organization, personal attitude, and ideology) that dominated the Cultural Revolution was the countermeasure for a structural ‘campaign fatigue’ that had begun to fail holding

353 See especially Shapiro, Mao’s War against Nature. 354 Bennett, Gordon, Yundong: Mass Campaigns in Chinese Communist Leadership, 16. 182 society together.355 Secondly, a major weakness of the campaigns was their intrinsic wear-off effect: vigorous at the beginning, they quickly lost momentum. Once society had familiarized itself with the new tasks promoted by the campaign, the initial spirit of optimism turned into habituation and routine. This process compromised the initial driving force of campaigns which, beyond the actual campaign target, were supposed to function as accelerators for the building of new societal structures and as a form of ‘social glue’. Tragically, campaigns could never be officially concluded as they usually addressed real and profound, continuous problems that the campaign could address, but not resolve. Having to reinforce momentum at all costs, the Party usually initiated a different campaign at this point, leaving previous campaign goals unfinished and creating an impression of arbitrariness that caused people to become emotionally indifferent against campaign goals over time. Thirdly, the mechanism that led all campaigns enter into repeated cycles of random accusations against individuals forced people to take protective measures, undermine the efficacy of campaigns or even sabotage them.356 In preparation from 1949 and officially launched in in 1952, the Patriotic Health campaign’s core phase lasted until 1959, whereupon it was superseded by the Great Leap Forward. Technically, however, campaign activities were still launched far into the 1960s and beyond (in fact, the campaign’s name is still used in present-day public health promotion).357 It was a nationwide campaign that involved all parts of society, especially through the active engagement of danwei in all different work fields. Its origins lay in the assumption or claim—which is still supported by some contemporary Chinese historians but generally considered as disproved by international institutions and Western historians—that the Americans used biological weapons in the Korean War and that China needed to prepare for possible contamination through germ warfare. Rogaski argues that at a deeper level, it was yet another campaign that targeted nature (with some of its health-harming qualities) and imperialism as “the archetypical mortal enemies of New China”, yet it was the combination of war preparation and sanitary reform

355 Ibid., 33. 356 Ibid., 42, 44, 87, 90. 357 Cf. Rogaski, Ruth, “Nature, Annihilation, and Modernity: China’s Korean War Germ- warfare Experience Reconsidered,” 406. 183 propagated at the surface that effectively mobilized the entire nation.358 All about sanitation on the practical level, the campaign did, in fact, have a lot of penetrating power and showed visible results, especially since it effectively merged with the Eradicate the Four Pests campaign, the Anti-schistosomiasis campaign as well as intermittent campaigns for the collection of fertilizer (Ji fei yundong 积肥运动) at the local level.359 One of the campaign’s incentives was the dissemination of public health knowledge, the most stressed aspects of which were disease prevention and the scientification (therefore also Westernization) of medicine.360 Another important target field was the sanitation of the urban sphere. In many aspects, the Patriotic Health campaign took over where the New Life movement had ceased prematurely: its integrative and recurring mass activities created the long-term continuance of sanitary practices that the New Life movement had not been able to provide. Certainly, the Patriotic Health campaign benefited greatly from older structures that had been laid out during the Republican era; people were already familiar with nationwide sanitary campaigns and responded well to the new directives. Thanks to the remaining influence of the New Life movement, small-scale sanitary activities had been repeatedly practiced locally throughout the Second World War—for example, according to one of the New Life movement’s regulations, small-scale urban cleanups were supposed to be executed twice per year for a day in May and December.361 In the meantime, however, municipal street cleaning had still not developed into a regular practice on a nationwide scale. It only existed in China’s most developed cities—Shanghai, of course, was a leading example; sanitation in Chengdu was relatively advanced at the organizational level as well but many other cities were lacking behind. As has been described previously in this thesis, levels of sanitation could vary significantly even between Shanghai and Chengdu, yet when the Communists took power, new nationwide practices began to balance out

358 Ibid., 410; Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 56. 359 Hu Jinhua 胡锦华, “Qinli Shanghai Aiguo weisheng yundong 亲历上海爱国卫生运动,” 48; Zhang Hongfang 张红芳, and Zhang Ling 张玲, “Jianguo chuqi quanmin canyu weisheng fangyi de chenggong changshi... dui “Sichuan ribao” zhong Aiguo weisheng yundong baodao de fenxi (1952–1955) 建国初期全民参与卫生防疫的成功尝试——对《四川日报》中爱国卫生运动报道的分析(1952–1955),” 57; Ai Zhike 艾智科, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu 新中国成立初期的城市清洁卫生运动研究,” 78. 360 Liu Zheng 刘正, “Qianxi Jianguo chuqi juyou Zhongguo tese de Aiguo weisheng yundong 浅析建国具有中国特色的爱国卫生运动,” 190. 361 Ai “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu, 75. 184 previous disparities in urban sanitary development. During the early People’s Republic, urban sanitation levels progressed in the whole country through the reintroduction of regular mass cleanups. The first communist mass cleanups were held even before the official launch of the Patriotic Health movement: in Shanghai, the first one was initiated in December 1949, organized through the formation of district cleanup committees in co-operation with the local Party offices. During all times when periodical campaign activities were carried out, Shanghai citizens were called to contribute to sanitation work and participate in public health tutoring. Areas of activity included street cleaning, public health propaganda, motivating one’s neighbors to clean up inside their dwellings, pest control, disinfection, and first aid for the injured and the sick, among various other tasks.362 An important novelty was the high frequency of mass activities: even beyond scheduled campaign periods, each Thursday afternoon was designated to nationwide public cleanups that involved all organizations and workplaces.363 Ai’s argument that these mass cleanups should not be regarded merely as top-down policies but rather as a huge common project on general well- being364 may hold true from an ideological perspective but seems objectionable under closer consideration of the assumed campaign conditions: obviously, citizens were periodically entrusted with extensive additional physical labor that previously had been accomplished exclusively by ‘professional’ street cleaning divisions. To the author of this thesis, it seems unlikely that a majority of the urban population would have eagerly volunteered for these tasks, given the fact that street cleaning is physically strenuous and involves dirt and bad smells. In addition, most urban citizens were already performing manual labor, and/or were occupied with their large families. Due to the unique residential architecture in Shanghai, which featured vast neighborhoods in the lilong 里弄/shikumen 石库门 alleyway style, the task load for residents differed according to the neighborhood they lived in. While residents of ‘regular’ dwellings got away with contributing to street cleaning only during the periodical peak phases of campaigns, which usually lasted a few weeks, lilong residents had to clean up their entire neighborhoods themselves at all times.365

362 Ibid., 77. 363 Hu, “Qinli Shanghai Aiguo weisheng yundong,” 48. 364 Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 77. 365 Ibid. 185 Presumably, this had to do with the particular architectural structure of the contorted, labyrinth-like lilong, which were probably inconvenient to access and too time-consuming to clean up for the professional cleanup teams. Besides contributing to physically removing waste and dirt from the public sphere, campaign leaders laid great emphasis on sanitary education; the aforementioned slogan men qian san bao 门前三包 (“three responsibilities outside of the house”), for example, which reminded people to contribute to cleanliness maintenance, join in on taking care of public greenery, and abide with the general public order, originates from the Patriotic health campaign. 366 Educational strategies used in Shanghai included tutorials on how to jointly clean up a city—this process being popularly called “doing sanitation” (gao weisheng 搞卫生)—, propaganda posters, exhibitions, articles, public health parades, radio broadcasts, and more. In addition, the Communists engaged artists such as opera singers and theater actors as a new medium to convey the message.367 Chengdu launched its first sanitary campaign one year after Shanghai. After the war, especially since the Republican cleanup campaigns had faded out, Chengdu’s streets had remained mostly uncleaned. Drains were clogged, waste was scattered about, public toilets were overflowing, kitchen water was poured on the streets, dead rats and deceased livestock were left to rot, manure covered the streets, flies and mosquitoes bred, and nobody really cared to remove anything so that, at least according to the Chengdu huanjing weishengzhi, “the waste of an entire year piled up hill-high (changnian laji duiji ru qiu 长年垃圾堆积如丘)”.368 For the organization of sanitary campaigns, the city was divided in east and west, each area of which coordinated its own activities. During a running campaign, everybody’s day usually started with a bell sign in the early morning that called for joint street sweeping. In 1954 and 1955, the street sweeping was coordinated

366 Liu, “Qianxi Jianguo chuqi juyou Zhongguo tese de Aiguo weisheng yundong,” 190. 367 Hu, “Qinli Shanghai Aiguo weisheng yundong,” 48. The integration of former leisure activities with political education was a propagandistic novelty that was applied with great success. Wang Di has first made this connection in his latest “Teahouse” monograph, where he explains the conversion of the Sichuan teahouse from a space of public life encounter into a space of propagandistic activity during the Mao era. As he explains, existing structures for leisure and free time enjoyment—a concept no longer socially acceptable within the new political culture—, such as the teahouse, could be easily converted for political purposes because people were still emotionally attached to the memory of entertainment they used to experience in those places. Cf. Wang, Di, The Teahouse Under Socialism: The Decline and Renewal of Public Life in Chengdu 1950–2000. 368 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi, 8. 186 with the schedule of the professional cleaning units for better efficiency.369 Local campaign activities were embedded into an action plan for the entire province, central targets of which included the improvement and uniformation of hygiene in public toilets, rat eradication, and urban waste removal. According to Zhang and Zhang, during the year 1952 alone the entire provincial population jointly removed a total of 540 tons of dead flies, 480 tons of dead rats as well as 11,790,000 tons of waste. It further built or repaired canalization systems at a length almost equivalent to the entire province’s railway system and supported the food industry in its fight against contamination with parasites.370 Through the assignment of different responsibilities, Chengdu’s population was organized into task groups that identified with specific sanitary goals. For example, male citizens formed so-called “Environmental Hygiene Task Groups (Huanjing weisheng zu 环境卫生组)” and engaged mainly in sanitary construction and infrastructure maintenance, such as the dredging and unclogging of sewers, while women were appointed to “Household Sanitation Task Groups (Jiawu weisheng zu 家务卫生组)”, working more around the house and contributing especially to picking up waste, sweeping and cleaning. The elderly and young children formed a group of their own that was mainly responsible for disinfection and pest eradication (“Risk Prevention and Five Pests Task Groups, Xiaozai wu hai zu 消灾五害组”).371 Overall, archival reports suggest that the Patriotic Health campaign led to improvements in Chengdu’s street sanitation level, especially because campaign activities were heavily supervised. In contrast to previous decades, people now had to store their waste inside their houses until the collection vehicles stopped by; random littering was forbidden. Allegedly, these measures led to a significant reduction in scattered street waste. Working groups that performed beyond the responsible officials’ expectations were praised in public; failure to properly coordinate within a group was heavily criticized, yet local officials noted that criticism alone would not guarantee sufficient control over each and every individual’s personal attitude and investment, and they generally rated the campaign spirit in certain working groups rather low. People’s lack of zeal did not

369 Ibid., 10. 370 Zhang and Zhang, “Jianguo chuqi quanmin canyu weisheng fangyi de chenggong changshi,” 57. 371 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi 10. The fifth pest referred to here is supposedly one of the ‘additional’ pest mentioned previously. 187 significantly restrict the overall positive effects of the consistent mass cleaning processes which, in Chengdu, sometimes lasted several months in a row. However, there always remained certain locations that were never cleaned up at all. 372 But apart from pointing out working groups that appeared to be ‘underachieving’, local campaign leaders—typically of the political climate of the time—seem to have been very uncritical of the campaign’s shortcomings. Zhang and Zhang explore the reflections of this mechanism in Sichuan public media, which they also find to have hardly ever openly critiqued any of the campaign’s results. Between the lines, however, they find evidence for organizational weaknesses of the campaign in local newspaper journalism of the 1950s and early 1960s. According to their analysis, one of those weaknesses was insufficient critical review of local campaign activities: for example, the general practice to push danwei for better cleanup results was to inspect them regularly and mark them with simple but widely visible tags on their front doors that read “qingjie 清洁 (clean)”, “bu qingjie 不清洁 (not clean)” or “zui bu qingjie 最不清洁 (extremely unclean)”, showing a danwei’s sanitary status. The way to achieve a “qingjie” tag was determined by the actual hygienic condition of the danwei as well as by their preparatory status for future cleaning and how well the danwei’s sanitary strategy corresponded to Party directions and norms. Such directions and norms, however, could be contradictory. For example, it not only mattered whether a work unit was effectively free of flies at a given time but it was at least equally important how much of the recommended equipment it possessed to eradicate flies in the future. Standards like this, which primarily served to prove whether a danwei was compliant with Party instructions rather than whether it actually had a functioning sanitary strategy, led to inefficiencies in the execution of campaign activities—for example, it led danwei to invest more effort into gathering equipment than into actually cleaning up—which, according to Zhang and Zhang, somewhat distorted campaign leaders’ realistic overview on real success and failure. Still, the existence of flies, mosquitoes, dust, and garbage heaps were unmistakable indicators for insufficient sanitation which danwei were still regularly criticized for.373 Zhang and Zhang trace back how newspapers were effectively used to publicly call out enterprises that, for example, did not comply

372 CMA, 78-002-484-7. 373 Ibid.; Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 78. 188 with important sanitary regulations, polluted drinking water with their waste, refused to clean up their premises, or failed to provide sanitary working conditions for their employees. However, they also find that criticism was unevenly distributed; numerous and, according to their findings, demonstrably careless danwei all over Sichuan province did not get called out but turned into “blind spots (sijiao 死角)” in the eyes of local officials.374 Although Zhang and Zhang do not explicitly suggest it, active decisions to deliberately turn a blind eye on certain danwei for various politically questionable reasons, including favoritism, tacit agreements, and corruption, could be considered as an explanation for such “blind spots”. Overall, the Patriotic Health campaign also had other, much more substantial flaws that ultimately diminished its positive effects. Like many other campaigns of the Mao era, it saw a remarkable impact during the initial years, but the most positive effects only lasted while people were actively mobilized. More importantly, Ai finds that people’s participation was not born out of their own intrinsic conviction of the benefits of sanitation, but rather out of inner-societal discourse and propaganda. As soon as the ideological focus shifted—which happened with the onset of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, and again with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966—, people’s attention on sanitary matters soon ebbed away. In addition, Ai points out that sanitary activities were not coordinated uniformly but possessed a “high degree of randomness (hen da de suibianxing 很大的随便行)” that obstructed the formation of clear, easily repeatable sanitary strategies as well as long-term stable structures that would last beyond the campaign’s core phase.375 Zhang and Zhang criticize the disparity between sanitary transformation in cities and the countryside: cities, possessing a greater variety of residential communities (shequ 社区), workplace communities (jiguan 机关), and danwei of all sorts, which could be mobilized effectively for campaign projects, experienced significantly higher sanitation levels than rural areas. 376 As concerns waste removal in particular, the campaign definitely contributed to cleaner streets in cities, however, compared to the most pressing

374 Zhang and Zhang, “Jianguo chuqi quanmin canyu weisheng fangyi de chenggong changshi,” 57; Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 75. 375 Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 77, 79. 376 Zhang and Zhang, “Jianguo chuqi quanmin canyu weisheng fangyi de chenggong changshi,” 58. 189 health threats such as polluted water, excrement contamination, and disease transmission, waste control was not the campaign’s highest priority and therefore did not receive the amount of attention it would have deserved.377 Nevertheless, as Zhang and Zhang correctly point out, the true strength of this campaign was actually to be found less in its practical accomplishments but rather in its purposeful baseline and successful integration of the public: the Patriotic Health campaign managed to appeal even to the lower and lowest strata of the urban society, relating to people’s daily sufferings and health struggles, and calling upon them to take action against their own misery. In Ai’s words, this was the aspect that most fundamentally differentiated the Patriotic Health movement from Republican campaigns and that made a crucial difference for people’s acceptance of the campaign goals: the most important long-term change that this campaign achieved was a wide acceptance for sanitary measures.378 Another strength was its sincere focus on people and the everyday. This campaign was not particularly ideological, nor was it directed specifically against “old societal customs”, “reactionaries”, or other typical campaign targets of the Mao era. Instead, it was about real-world concerns that anybody could relate to. Zhang and Zhang assume that the campaign’s real concern about people’s personal wellbeing and its topical detachment from the otherwise omnipresent ‘class struggle’ contributed greatly to its success in a society that had only recently lived through decades of hostilities. Its acceptance with the wider public was very closely related to its almost apolitical appeal.379 Last but not least, the campaign transported an interesting model of thought according to which an entire society was held accountable for removing the waste it produced. Especially in comparison with the Hong Kong case—which demonstrates the speed at which a local society can enter an oblivious throwaway path and lose sight of the environmental risks of waste pollution (see below)—, the approach to engage everybody in pollution reduction holds potential for higher levels of environmental consciousness, at least on a theoretical level. Certainly, in this particular case, it is important to specify on the underlying intentions: in Revolutionary China, the main goal was not to commit everybody to

377 Cf. Hu, “Qinli Shanghai Aiguo weisheng yundong,” 50. 378 Ai, “Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi de chengshi qingjie weisheng yundong yanjiu,” 75. 379 Zhang and Zhang, “Jianguo chuqi quanmin canyu weisheng fangyi de chenggong changshi,” 57. 190 environmental responsibility, but to engage people to jointly overcome obstacles (such as urban pollution) that nature imposed on society—according to communist thinking, it was everybody’s joint responsibility to cope with such obstacles. During the frequent campaign phases, having to remove waste with their own hands, people were technically confronted with their own everyday waste production and the existence of waste pollution at a much deeper level than previously, and definitely at a more intensely than most capitalist, industrialized societies which, at the same time, had already found ways to make waste ‘disappear’ efficiently from public consciousness. In this regard, future research should further explore the heritage and scope of actual sustainability thinking that may or may not have evolved from these structures. But in doing so, it is important to accurately differentiate between different forms of waste pollution and the realm in which they occurred; even if the average urban citizen in Revolutionary China actually came to develop an increased consciousness about the polluting qualities of their own household waste, this does not mean that decision-makers did as well. Based on the primary materials consulted for this thesis, it is impossible to draw unambiguous conclusions on whether or not sanitary campaigns had any significant influence on decision-making processes that concerned industrial waste pollution. Future research should also ask questions about local or higher cadres’ consciousness for waste pollution, many of whom are likely to have been familiar with both everyday and industrial forms of pollution: was their consciousness for waste problems enhanced by campaigns such as the Patriotic Health campaign? If it was, then what were the exact influencing factors that led to pollution-accepting decision-making in the industrial realm? Due to their assumed complexity that would go far beyond the scope of this thesis, these questions cannot be answered in the present analysis, however, answering them would be a meaningful contribution to a better understanding of the emergence of contemporary waste problems in China.

2.3.2. Cleanliness Standards and Waste Collection As has been indicated previously, concerning the development of new sanitary regulations or new definitions of cleanliness standards, the Revolutionary phase did not demonstrably advance beyond the republican era. If anything, the reliability of already achieved standards decreased since rule of law was

191 significantly weakened. This should not result in the assumption that post-war urban spheres were necessarily ‘dirtier’ as a result; the described positive effects of the Patriotic Health campaign speak against it. It is important, however, to point out the temporary character of these improvements: the strong dependency of sanitary services on campaign dynamics made them susceptible to destabilization caused by ideological focus shifts. As this section will show, even if sanitary standards and the efficiency of waste collection during the Mao era did not fall short of republican cleanliness standards, it is equally impossible to ascertain any significant improvement, since most pre-war problems around waste removal ultimately remained unresolved. In general, the possibilities to retrace in great detail the development of waste collection and urban sanitation during Mao era are limited since the availability of primary materials on this topic is restricted, especially with regard to New China’s largest mass movements, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. Both movements were ideologically unrelated to sanitation, which may explain why the confrontation with urban cleanliness problems was temporarily subordinate to much higher-ranking political objectives such as industrialization or the resolution of class struggle during these phases. As a result, urban sanitation is much less prominently featured in administrative documents or newspaper articles from the period of the late 1950s to mid-1970s. This does not imply that waste management generally mattered less in Revolutionary China, however, the focus shifted to a different context: reference has already been made to the connection between waste management and the communist recycling economy, which will be addressed in further detail in chapter 4. The other topic inseparably connected to waste collection during this period was fertilizer collection. Catering to recurrent local or regional fertilizer collection campaigns, waste collection strategies during the Revolutionary period were all about maximizing the collection of night soil and household waste for the purpose of agricultural production enhancement. The 1950s first saw a variety of new initiatives to strengthen the fertilizer system, the basic structures of which were, as has been shown, already in place and did not need to be substantially reformed. New measures aimed especially at adjusting the fertilizer system to the planned economy, increasing collection, optimizing distribution, and raising fertilizer quality. Looking into the details of these new measures, some information on the

192 development of waste collection and street cleaning strategies can be learned as well: for example, an internal opinion paper on fertilizer production compiled by Shanghai’s Weisheng ju in 1957 reveals the status of waste production and landfilling of the time: during the year 1957, Shanghai produced about 3,050 tons of household waste on a daily basis, most of which could be used as fertilizer then. The industrialized processing of fertilizing materials, capable of processing wastes on a much larger scale than ever before, was a novelty of the 1950s; the local fertilizer-producing state-owned enterprises (feiliao gongsi 肥料公司) operated two local factories—the Shanghai feiliaochang 上海肥料厂 and the Songjiang feiliaochang 松江肥料厂—, both installed in 1956.380 Both factories specialized in quality granulate fertilizer (lifei 粒肥) and processed 500 tons of fresh garbage daily. The remaining 1,800 tons produced daily in Shanghai were taken away by peasants untreated, just like in previous decades. 381 The local fertilizer network was huge: it included the entire Shanghai area, its surrounding countryside as well as neighboring counties in Zhejiang and Jiangsu. Around 10,000 peasants entering Shanghai every day by boat; officials noted that the only real problem they had with this system at the time was to coordinate the daily influx of this many people. Throughout the entire Revolutionary period, the street cleaning schedule could never be successfully synchronized with the peasants’ arrival; officials observed that peasants were not used to city rules, obstructed traffic, and randomly dropped waste. Many peasants were unfamiliar with the Shanghai waters, which could get very crowded, and frequently caused boat accidents and got into fights with the Shanghai boat people (chuanmin 船民). In the eyes of responsible officials, the fact that each peasant entirely followed his or her own schedule disturbed the process of planning for fertilizer production and also prevented an even distribution of fertilizing materials. Yet, a reorganization of fertilizer collection never took place.382 Fights also developed over the amounts of fertilizer that could be taken away per person. The Municipal People’s Committee (Shanghai Shi Renmin weiyuanhui 上海市人民委员会, or Shirenwei 市人委) especially criticized the “first come first serve” (tiaoyun 挑运 , lit. “to jump fate”, fig. “to choose by luck”) mechanism that dominated in the fertilizer

380 SMA, B242-1-1022-24. 381 Ibid. 382 SMA, A54-2-199-471. 193 pick-ups. In the logic of the planned economy, it was unfeasible that those who arrived last should receive smaller amounts, since this would inhibit an even distribution of agricultural productivity.383 Other problems surrounding fertilizer collection concerned the loss of valuable waste and nightsoil due to accidental dropping, especially in sewers, water channels, and local rivers, during transport. In order to counterbalance any loss of fertilizer, the Shirenwei ordered that all neighborhoods erect a sufficient amount of cesspools for nightsoil collection and that all toilets, private or public, be directly connected to them—this may probably have resulted in substantial construction work around Shanghai’s numerous flush toilets—and that more public toilets be erected around the harbor and other waste jetties in order to avoid that incoming peasants would simply do their ‘business’ in the water or on land.384 As of 1958, urban dwellers were given the responsibility to personally contribute to fertilizer production by collecting waste and nightsoil at household level and handing it in—with a positive effect: according to a 1961 statistic by the Bureau of Agriculture (Nongye ju 农业局), this measure doubled night soil collection and increased waste collection by twenty-five percent within three years. Of course, it was not total waste production that had risen but the amount of wastes that was fed into the fertilizer system (cf. also the figures on waste production presented in chapter 2.1).385 In Chengdu, the importance placed on fertilizer production was similar, and sanitary management under communism was deeply intertwined with it. In 1956, for example, local Patriotic Health campaign activities lasted straight from January to August and were dominated by a huge district cleanup competition that was launched specifically with the purpose to harvest as much waste as possible for the production of industrial pellet fertilizer. This goal was placed above the importance of the appearance of the city and sanitary education. The campaign season of 1956 is reported to have been hugely successful: by September, seventy to eighty percent of street waste had supposedly disappeared, with no waste at all remaining on the large thoroughfares. Over time, Chengdu became resourceful in its ways to turn all different types of waste into industrial fertilizer: a report of 1960 mentions an amount of 476,032 jin (238,016 kg) of fertilizer made from household waste residues (zhafei 渣肥), green manure (qingfei 青肥), and sludges

383 Ibid. 384 Ibid. 385 SMA, B257-1-3092-142. 194 (wuni 污泥, probably derived from channel and river dredging) throughout the whole year.386 But despite ongoing campaign activities, educational measures, and proactive fertilizer collection, both Revolutionary Shanghai and Chengdu struggled to provide constant surface cleaning. As previously mentioned, this development correlated with population increase. In Shanghai, street waste accumulated because it seemed impossible to coordinate collection times with the times when people placed their garbage outside. There was also a lack of public toilets, which resulted in the accumulation of excrements. The reasons were mainly organizational but also financial: the amount of transport vehicles was too low, the professional street cleaning units were lacking equipment, and residents’ contributions to street cleaning was not synchronized with the professional cleaning units’ schedules. Despite the fact that these units swept the streets four to six times a day, they did not achieve evenly clean streets. This is surprising not only because the streets were cleaned so much more frequently than during Republican times but also because the number of professional cleaning workers had vastly increased in comparison to prewar times: by 1963, Shanghai employed no less than 21,000 individuals in waste and nightsoil management—this included 1,300 street cleaners, 1,500 waste transport workers, 3,700 nightsoil collectors, 630 workers in charge of public toilet maintenance, 520 truck drivers, 900 transport boatmen, 8,400 workers in charge of nightsoil transport, 3,000 resident supporters and another 1,000 “unspecified” individuals. Obviously, sanitary services were not deficient in staff; however, according to local officials, the staff was severely deficient in equipment. Poor cleaning results seem plausible if one pictures a situation in which various individuals constantly have to take turns in the application of different tools; under such circumstances, inevitably, a part of each working unit must have been unoccupied at all times, which must have resulted in slow speed and the incapability to clean up all surface waste during scheduled rounds. 387 This development shows one of the Patriotic Health campaign’s greatest controversies at the local level in Shanghai: while everybody was joining efforts to keep the city clean, failure to overcome even simple structural problems (such as the provision of sufficient equipment supply) led to

386 CMA, 78-002-484-6. 387 SMA, B257-1-3092-142; B256-2-186-1. 195 the fact that even the joint effort of professional cleaning and the public never really achieved the goal of clean streets. Even right after active campaign episodes, cleanliness is unlikely to have lasted for very long under the described circumstances. As concerns Chengdu, archival reports suggest that levels of street sanitation varied significantly over the years. The usual daily cleanup routine required all danwei to assemble a few minutes before starting their regular work and to quickly gather all the fertilizing materials that were lying around. On Fridays, they had to do a larger cleanup in the workspace that also included pest eradication. An archival report of 1960 mentions, however, that performance quality could vary greatly between different danwei. Some were reported ‘uncritical’ of their own cleaning performance; allegedly they claimed to be busy and having to put work first. In other cases, investigating cadres found that group leaders were not being strict enough.388 Generally, however, due to its only average size, Chengdu was much easier to keep clean than Shanghai. Street cleaning work could be coordinated with less complication between the professional cleaning units (generally in charge of all roads that hosted constant traffic) and residents (responsible for waste removal and street sweeping on walkways). By the late 1950s, however, when the Great Leap Forward shifted societal focus from sanitation to industrial production and almost all adult citizens were mobilized to work full time, street cleaning lost much of its required work power. Simultaneously, large-scale urban development projects contributed to a steep increase in construction waste and dust levels, which actually required more thorough cleaning. Around 1960, Chengdu employed only 193 individuals in professional street cleaning—the difference to Shanghai is significant—, which was a hugely insufficient number; citizens had to be mobilized even more to contribute a greater share of work to the improvement of the city’s appearance. Organized into so-called “self-cleaning teams (zi qingsao dui 自清扫队)”, they now were not only responsible for walkways and smaller alleyways alone but also for all middle-size roads—on top of their often full-time workload.389 In the absence of sufficient primary evidence on street cleaning and waste collection routines during the Cultural Revolution, it is unclear how cadres and

388 CMA, 077-002-171-6. 389 Cf. Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi, 10, 12. 196 the wider public dealt with problems like the described as time progressed. For Chengdu, the Chengdu huanjing weishengzhi (published in 1994) mentions that most structures that had previously maintained street sanitation collapsed entirely during this period, and the attempt to introduce new structures molded to serve revolutionary goals resulted in efficiency fluctuations (shi hao shi cha 时好时差, or “sometimes successful, sometimes lacking”).390 A gradual restructuring of street cleaning began in only the 1970s, however, most on-going problems still remained unresolved even after that: in 1973, the Working Group on Industry and Traffic of Shanghai’s Municipal Revolutionary Committee compiled a report that still critiqued ongoing problem with waste removal and surface cleaning. The report associates these problems with an insufficient implementation of mechanization in street cleaning—referring, for example, to motorized vehicles for the facilitation of waste collection, such as trucks that could lift waste bins and sweeper machines, which had already been introduced in the early 1970s, however, not in sufficient quantity. They pointed out that too much human workforce was being wasted on street cleaning and waste collection; at a still relatively stable rate of daily waste production, the number of professional street cleaners in Shanghai had now been fixated at 2,600 street sweepers and 1,700 additional individuals working in waste transport. The Party had nothing to complain about their commitment and thorough execution of everyday cleanup tasks, yet for the amount of work that they carried out, poor results were achieved still.391 New rounds of cleanup campaigns were still occasionally launched as well, however, it was reported that it was no longer possible to mobilize people’s full strength and commitment. A large two-week cleanup launched from late July to early August 1973 in Shanghai, for example, involved about 10,000 citizens and 1,000 danwei who collected 220,000 tons of waste accumulations over the course of 14 days. These efforts apparently helped to improve environmental sanitation but left behind another 70,000 to 80,000 tons of waste that was still awaiting collection. Since regular sanitary services could not be further backed up at the time for a continuous lack of financial resources, local officials could only repetitively resort to further campaign episodes, institutionalizing them and

390 Ibid., 12. 391 SMA, B246-2-925-45. 197 connecting them to national holidays such as National Day in October, with the aim to be able to mobilize the public more easily.392 By the late 1970s, local officials began to dread the fact that farmers still had individual access to household waste when coming into the city for fertilizer. The envisioned coordination of their schedule never took place: they still came and went on their own terms, waste material continued to get scattered on roads as they passed by, and waterways were still affected by garbage dropped accidentally during transport. By this time, household waste was no longer used in industrial fertilizer production since the peasants were ready to take away all compostable components untreated. At the same time, the uncompostable parts, useless for fertilizer production of any kind, accumulated downtown in increasing quantities. While still filling in waste at Sanlintang, Shanghai had to open up to new sites in Pudong Xinqu, Xiaozha 小闸 and Chuansha 川沙, and had also begun to deliver waste to new landfills in the countryside of Jiangsu, for the first time sending waste outside of Shanghai’s own municipal territory. Those new landfills were still managed by the Shanghai administration; it seems that through these measures, local officials were effectively preparing for rising amounts of waste production that were to be expected in the future.393 As has already been discussed in chapter 1, this was also the time when local waste management approaches were systematically reconsidered: as of the 1980s, street cleaning and waste removal were slowly restructured in the context of the aforementioned political turn towards rule of law, which allowed for new and slightly more progressive regulations. At the practical level, in relation to rising economic productivity, it was now finally possible to open up new funds for public services and gradually mechanize street cleaning and waste collection, which visibly raised urban sanitation levels after the 1970s. Still, this development remained a slow process that did not fully gain momentum before the 1990s.394

2.3.3. Adjusting to Urban Density: Organizational Challenges of Mid to Late Twentieth-century Waste Collection in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s political and economic development path resulted in a post-war approach to waste collection and disposal that stood in sharp contrast to

392 B246-1-603-53. Cf. also Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi, 111. 393 SMA, B256-3-6-66. 394 Ibid. 198 Revolutionary China. As can be expected, in the course of Hong Kong’s development as an industrializing, increasingly turbo-capitalist tiger state economy, its waste production patterns and management scheme began to show more parallels with industrialized societies than with its neighbor Mainland China. One would expect that colonial Hong Kong, being so closely connected to Great Britain, would have no problems quickly adopting the required new strategies that an up-and-coming economy would need for the industrialization of its waste management. As this section as well as chapter 3 will argue, however, it was precisely its status as a colony, along with its peculiar geographic setting, that led to a series of complicating events, missed opportunities, and unsustainable decisions which, in their combination, inhibited the timely development of an efficient, industrialized waste management scheme—not even to speak of a sustainable waste management system here, since the mere fact that a system is ‘efficient’ and industrialized (meaning simply its capacity to actually treat most of the waste that accumulates locally in one way or the other by means of advanced technology and rational organization), as it is the case in most of today’s developed nations, does not make it sustainable yet. As will be shown in the following, various aspects of late colonial Hong Kong’s waste management are contradictory: while the colonial sanitary authorities had managed to gain control over the removal of surface waste in a metropolis that roughly quadrupled its population within only twenty years, which is an achievement in itself, they completely failed to establish a solution beyond the surface of a polished urban appearance which would secure a long-term manageability of Hong Kong’s waste in the future. The reasons for this development are complex; while some of them are the result of short-sighted decision-making, others are linked to colonial Hong Kong’s unique and extreme conditions as a tiny but hugely overpopulated piece of land, tied to Mainland China but, for most of the twentieth century, politically detached from it, ruled by a foreign government but on “borrowed space and time”395. With regard to durable solutions to waste management, these conditions and decisions resulted in a very unique but no less cautionary example of a muddled combination of problems that could not be taken back once they had fully developed. In their own way, these problems had an effect on the natural environment that was just as negative as the escalation of waste pollution on the

395 Hughes, Richard J., Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time: Hong Kong And Its Many Faces. 199 communist Mainland. Although these problems—as will also be further discussed in chapter 3—turned out to be more than just the result of damage done by colonial rule, they clearly originate in the post-war decades. The present section discusses colonial Hong Kong’s successful post-war agenda to remove waste from the public sphere and further raise sanitary standards while simultaneously neglecting the development of long-term solutions for waste disposal. At the beginning, no such problems stood out: after the Second World War, the prewar practice of waste and night soil removal in Hong Kong could first be continued in its former ways. During the years of economic and political recovery, there was no immediate need for comprehensive innovation in the street-cleaning sector; the proved prewar system that required only cheap workforce and the simplest equipment (brooms and shovels, buckets, carts, boats, and a few lorries) was both inexpensive to maintain and effective enough for the colony’s needs of the time. No major changes were applied for roughly a decade while Hong Kong was recovering economically and starting to strive—by the late 1950s, however, post-war population growth as well as the effects of rising economic prosperity and industrialization called for infrastructural revisions in a city that had begun to develop rapidly into one of the world’s densest metropolises.396 New challenges to the local infrastructure concerned especially the maintenance and improvement of public health standards and general quality of life since, by the 1960s, Hong Kong already accommodated twice its pre-war population. Some of these changes were initiated by the Urban Services Department (the Urban Council’s new executive arm, founded in 1953 and responsible for the administration of environmental hygiene, culture, sports, museums, and public entertainment). 397 At first, improvements in the street cleaning were limited to details such as the provision of easier water access for street washing. 398 The next step was more substantial and included a reorganization of Hong Kong’s street cleaning units and their equipment for the sake of time and work efficiency. In contrast to prewar times—when all physical work had still been ‘outsourced’ to private contractors who employed their own units of street workers—, the colonial government now empowered itself to the

396 In 1950, Hong Kong’s total population was 2,360,000 (see the Appendix for a tabular overview). Offset against Hong Kong’s total surface of 1,106 square kilometers, Hong Kong already counted 2,134 inhabitants per square kilometer during that time. 397 Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 32. 398 PRO, HKRS-156-1-9078. 200 full organizational and executive responsibility for street cleaning: the contract system was abolished. The fact that all workers employed in Hong Kong’s new “Cleansing Division” founded by the end o the 1960s worked directly for the government had two major advantages for both parties: firstly, as a result of centralized task organization, street cleaning could be more uniformly and efficiently coordinated, and the workers’ performance could be more directly monitored and controlled. Secondly, it provided stable working contracts as well as improved working conditions for the workers, which, compared to the prewar street hiring system that provided no security, were a meaningful improvement. Detailed information on the restructuring of street cleaning services can be drawn from a bilingual manual on street cleaning published by the Urban Services Department, entitled The Cleansing Handbook for Supervisory Staff, published in 1968 in both English and Chinese language. It features instructions on new, enhanced street cleaning techniques and supervision but also, for the first time, safety guidelines for the protection of health and personal hygiene in this ‘unhygienic’ and strenuous business.399 Even more significant were some first— albeit very basic—social services granted through the government employment status that prewar street cleaners had never enjoyed; these included free hospitalization in case of injuries during duty, sick leave, grievance leave in case of a family casualty, temporary monetary support of the family if the worker himself passed away as well as mourning support for his family to finance the funeral.400 Due to a strict standardization of street cleaning techniques, the overall quality of street sanitation could now be controlled and maintained more easily. The cleaning units worked in small district group formations that cleaned the streets in synchronized piecework along fixed routes: the first group did nothing else but sweep street waste into roadside channels, the next one picked it up and cleared out drains, a third group washed down the streets where the first two groups had passed, and yet another group exclusively emptied out all waste bins along the route and washed them down. On a tight schedule, they had to move fast and coordinate all working steps efficiently between all task group members. As of 1964, street sweeping was also mechanized (supported by street sweeper vehicles

399 Urban Services Department, The Cleansing Handbook for Supervisory Staff—Jiejing ke shouce 洁净科手册, 101–107. 400 Ibid., 301(1–2); 329(1). 201 and transport trucks) on large roads; the workers themselves were still equipped with the same handheld tools as in prewar times, but physical labor was eased significantly by motorized vehicles, the number of which was consistently topped up to ensure faster traffic to dumping sites and other locations of waste treatment.401 As opposed to former times, when the contractors had been accountable for their workers’ failures, all workers were now individually responsible for the quality of their performance. Permanent control was perhaps one of the reasons why, despite the abovementioned improvements, many workers in street cleaning were dissatisfied with their working conditions. Another reason might have been the low recognition they received for their work— they were neither trusted nor respected by either the authorities or society any more than in prewar times; street cleaning was still one of the lowliest professions that existed. With Hong Kong’s economy skyrocketing, the 1950s and 1960s saw innumerable new work opportunities for the urban poor that seemed more attractive or promised better possibilities for economic and social advancement for countless individuals; only those without any other options had to stay in street cleaning. The Urban Services Department noted in a memorandum of 1965 that many opted to leave service, that it had become increasingly difficult to fill vacancies, and that many of those still working in street cleaning were showing an “apathetic attitude of labour towards their duties”.402 On the practical level, however, the new rationalized division of labor proved to be efficient: after the introduction of the new street cleaning choreography, severely or persistently unsanitary conditions in the streets—apart from the continuation of moderate littering that the Hong Kong population allegedly had a hard time giving up—were no longer reported neither in archival documents nor in local newspapers. Waste pollution certainly existed, especially off the coast and along beaches, but urbanized areas were much more waste-free. Thus, a shift in the organizational challenge took place: it was no longer the technical removal of waste from the streets but the much larger organizational problem of how to ultimately dispose of fast-growing waste accumulations in a spatially very restricted but rapidly growing metropolis. Already in the 1960s, Hong Kong was one of the world’s most crowded cities with downtown population densities of up to over 2,000 inhabitants per gross

401 Ibid., 303(1–2); 318(1). 402 PRO, HKRS-438-1-33. 202 acre403. This degree of urban density had various primary implications for public safety and health, including a lack of stable and sanitary housing as well as a huge risk of fire and epidemics, which needed to be addressed first.404 The necessity to organize waste disposal added to the fast-growing complexity of postwar urban administration and planning in Hong Kong. The biggest temporary challenge was the accommodation and integration of several million refugees. The refugee crisis had a severe impact on urban services: most newcomers squatted all over the region, especially in the previously sparsely inhabited New Territories, mostly under slum-like conditions that were characterized both by a lack of infrastructure and underregulation. 405 Many squatter areas were initially built from waste materials, described by the Urban Services Department as “shanty towns of scrap lumber, corrugated iron and sack-cloth on the hills above the urban areas”.406 Despite the colonial government’s efforts to resettle the squatters into new housing estates, the last shantytowns did not disappear before the 1970s as resettlement and urban construction was a lengthy process.407 The integration of refugees also implied familiarizing them with local sanitary standards—many of them came from rural areas in Mainland China having hardly ever heard of complex urban sanitation rules. It took several decades to achieve uniform sanitary standards throughout Hong Kong: still in 1979, the colonial government noted that in the most densely-populated areas, “streets and lanes [were] heaped with rubbish”. 408 This phenomenon was no longer owed to a lack in the organization of street cleaning but to Hong Kong’s increasingly high-rise urban structure: a substantial part of the reported waste was garbage that accumulated around collection points—municipal neighborhood collection spots where residents of high-rise buildings took or had taken their household trash because the municipal collection rounds would not enter the buildings—; the rest was garbage that residents of the same high-rise buildings threw out of their windows,

403 This measuring unit refers to all the pieces of land that were of interest to real estate investors. Due to Hong Kong’s high proportion of steep mountainous territory, the relation between possible building grounds and territory that is unsuitable for real estate investment is especially important. 404 Schmitt, Robert C., “Implications of Density in Hong Kong,” 210. 405 Mark, Chi-Kwan, “The ‘Problem of People’: British Colonials, Cold War Powers, and the Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, 1949–62,” 1146, 1149–1152, 1172. 406 PRO, HKRS-365-1-24(7). 407 Cf. Hu, Yueh, “The Problem of the Hong Kong Refugees,” 35; Dwyer, D. J., “Urban Squatters: The Relevance of the Hong Kong Experience,” 612. 408 PRO, HKRS-545-1-389-1. 203 precisely because it was inconvenient for them to take it downstairs. Furthermore, hawkers, pedestrians, and shopkeepers were still notorious for ignoring the public bins despite frequent fines for littering. At the time there were around 2,600 prosecutions for littering every month. As a result and despite all efforts to rationalize street cleaning, sanitation remained a challenge that the Urban Services Department tried to counterbalance with even more workforce than ever before: by 1979, 2,144 individuals were working both manually and with the help of 43 street sweeper vehicles, cleaning the streets four to eight times per day but still without achieving results that fully satisfied the colonial government’s high standards.409 Residents’ persistent habit to still dump garbage at random at this point is notable, especially since the colonial government had launched an on- going sanitary campaign entitled “Keep Hong Kong Clean” in 1971/72 after the model of a similar campaign in Singapore. It was not the first campaign against unsanitary habits that Hong Kong had seen: back in 1954/55, the Urban Council had run a much shorter campaign entitled “Keep your District Clean” which, however, aimed more at the integration of various government departments and private organizations to join efforts in the overall improvement of sanitary conditions than at public awareness raising.410 The 1972 campaign addressed the entire population of Hong Kong and has, to the present date, never been officially completed; it was relaunched every decade until the handover in 1997 and has occasionally reappeared even since, albeit on a much smaller scale.411 During the 1970s it ran all year round, featuring educative TV and radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, posters, handbills, and special classes in public schools. One method that proved to be especially successful was to explicitly denunciate past offenders in the public media and promulgate their legal persecution.412 Other methods were less aggressive; instead, they attempted to be integrative and included a variety of activities that directly targeted people’s dumping habits, such as community cleanup activities backed by industrial and commercial sponsorship or education on new legislation against littering, encouraged by a motivational cartoon mascot called Lap Sap Chung 垃圾虫 (Mand. Lajichong, which directly translates as “litterbug”) that became hugely popular. Additional,

409 HKRS-545-1-389-1. 410 Cf. Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 111. 411 Ibid., 167–168; cf. also Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Health Education Exhibition and Resource Centre, “Keep Hong Kong Clean.” 412 HKRS-70-8-3852. 204 large-scale professional cleanups did not involve the public but definitely made the municipality’s effort widely visible: the Cleansing Division was staffed with 1,000 to 1,500 extra men, the number of public waste bins and ashtrays was raised from 6,000 to 27,000, and the public was confronted with before–after footage of local places that had already transitioned from dirty to clean in various exhibitions and programs. To further engage the public, activities were organized that had different social groups, households, and schools compete against each other in cleanup and litter-avoiding games, which were often concluded with community- building get-togethers. The performing arts and museums were also involved.413 Reminiscent of some aspects of the New Life movement or even the Patriotic Health campaign, the Keep Hong Kong Clean campaign honestly aimed at winning people over in the name of cleanliness, not subduing them or scaring them off. Ultimately, the campaign results were promising enough to encourage a relaunch of activities on a regular basis. Behind the scenes, however, the campaign did not treat the actual problem as Hong Kong’s ‘real’ waste problems had already shifted to a different sphere: the natural environment. By the early 1980s, the colonial government could no longer ignore the fact that the actual need for action was not really in the re-education of littering residents. It even seems as if the campaign had, in fact, kept everyone busy in the firm belief to solve waste problems while actually concealing the real problem at hand: an Urban Council report of 1983 remarks that the campaign did nothing to resolve waste problems originating in farms, industries, and structurally underdeveloped areas. These problems included especially unauthorized, uncontrolled waste disposal and the discharge of liquid wastes into the local waters. The report notes that “as long as streams are still acting as entry points for all wastes from the activities of squatter structures, industries and whatnots along their banks”, there was no long-lasting positive effect to be expected from all the elaborate campaign activities. One of the campaign’s most important targets—to give the public the feeling that everyone’s “small contribution”made a difference—was certainly achieved, but not the much greater problem of industrial waste pollution, which was, after all, much more complicated to control.414

413 HKRS-545-1-389-1. 414 Ibid. 205 Hong Kong’s rapid postwar industrialization, which benefited from the abundance of cheap labor generated by the refugee crisis, 415 had indeed contributed to a serious increase in industrial waste416 production. This led to various new organizational challenges: traditionally, the Urban Services Department had only accounted itself responsible for household waste removal and excluded industrial waste removal and treatment from its services during the 1950s to 1970s, sometimes making exceptions if a firm or factory was ready to pay a special charge to have its waste picked up by the municipal services. The colonial government did, however, provide free space for industrial waste disposal. In 1964, Hong Kong’s dumping grounds were reported to have received 100 tons per day of industrial waste—which was assumedly not the full amount since not all industrial waste was actually “being properly disposed of”.417 An inquiry conducted by the Urban Services Department during the years 1964 and 1965 revealed that most companies—though not all—did, in fact, send their waste to government dumps on their own terms. Sometimes companies also tried to bypass transport costs by mixing in industrial waste with domestic refuse, which was picked up free of charge. 418 By the early to mid-1970s, industrial waste already accounted for about 68% of Hong Kong’s daily waste production, amounting to approximately 100 tons per day that were incinerated,419 and an average of 1000 tons per day that were discarded of at landfill—compared to the figure presented in the previous paragraph, this development vividly shows the speed and intensity at which Hong Kong’s industrialization progressed. Waste composition at landfill, in which household and industrial waste were mixed, consisted of an estimated 48% construction waste, 16% textiles, 16% baskets, 13% wood, 4% paper, 3% plastics, 2% straw, 2% ashes, 1% manure, and up to 29% of unspecific “mixed” wastes, while the incinerators received up to 61% of either wood or textiles, 14–18% paper, 17–26% “mixed waste”, 3 percent vegetable matter, and 0.3% plastics.420 These figures show that recyclables,

415 Leeming, Frank, “The Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong,” 338–339; Koo, Shou-eng, “The Role of Export Expansion in Hong Kong's Economic Growth,” 505. 416 In both archival documents and newspaper articles in English language of the time, the term “trade refuse” is often used in exchange for “industrial waste”. 417 PRO, HKRS-70-2-250. 418 PRO, HKRS-438-1-33; HKRS-156-1-3395. 419 For a detailed description of Hong Kong’s incineration scheme and it’s opportunity costs, see chapter 3. 420 Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong, 166–168. Obviously, the figures presented here do not add up to exactly 100 percent, which is partially due 206 including plastics, were not discarded of in large quantities; many probably never reached any municipal waste treatment facility at all, most likely because a substantial proportion of industrial waste of the 1950s to 1970s was not even discarded. Hong Kong’s largest industries of the time included the timber, textile, paper, metal, and plastics industries, all of which produced fallouts that could either be reused within the same industry or sold to other industries, including in neighboring regions and countries such as Macau, Taiwan, or Japan. Hong Kong’s recycling sector of the time was entirely carried by a line of individual waste traders that worked completely independently from the municipal waste management services. Their central role for the local circulation of secondhand materials will be investigated in further detail in chapter 4.2; what is relevant in this chapter’s context is their assumed contribution to a delay in the centralization of municipal recycling in Hong Kong. With the private recycling sector and municipal waste collection entirely separate from one another, the colonial government refused to acknowledge any responsibility for used goods and materials, an attitude that continued to shape colonial Hong Kong’s strategy concerning those types of waste until the handover of 1997. In its statement publication Waste Disposal Plan for Hong Kong of 1989, Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD) still claimed: It remains the Government’s view that direct participation in waste recovery and recycling activities is not appropriate for the Government. With its greater degree of flexibility and marketing ability, the private sector is better placed to embark on resource recovery ventures based on innovative technology.421

Relying strongly on an anticipated future engagement of recycling industries and hoping that after the handover, ways would be found to cut waste production at source, the colonial government missed the opportunity to introduce municipal recycling by or during the 1980s.422 This development, which is symptomatic of Hong Kong’s environmental decision-making during the late colonial era, ultimately projected beyond the handover: as Hills and Baron argue, the colonial to fact that the displayed figures are derived from different sample studies, and all are described as approximate estimates in the cited report. In displaying these figures, the goal is not to account for exact perventages but to provide a rough orientation concerning the different types of waste Hong Kong’s waste management facilities were dealing with during the mid-1970s and their relative proportion to one another. 421 Environmental Protection Department, Waste Disposal Authority, Waste Disposal Plan for Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Government Secretariat, Planning, Environment and Lands Branch, 1989), 67. 422 Ibid. 207 governmental structure, dominated by an “exclusively executive-led administrative system” with weak democratic mechanisms, could not be held sufficiently accountable for failure in environmental administration. 423 After 1997, these structural weaknesses remained the new government’s heritage. They resulted in a “fragmentation of responsibility and lack of communication and competition between departments” in the post-colonial era that were among the reasons for “serious constraints to the pursuit of sustainable development in the territory”, which, due to the adaptation of various administrative structures from the colonial into the post-colonial system, have dominated environmental decision-making and waste management strategies in Hong Kong ever since.424 Another problematic historical constant that traversed the handover was, according to Hills and Baron, the superiority of economic goals over anything related to the environment. Then and now, they state, “it is clear that many Hong Kong government officials remain primarily growth-oriented and even now regard environmental considerations as, at best, an optional ‘add-on’ after growth has been ensured”.425 This growth orientation was one of the major reasons why colonial Hong Kong was ill-prepared for waste pollution and did not take the initiative to comprehensively and holistically reform its waste management system while there was still time. The figures presented above do not even make reference to the most environmentally damaging types of waste: toxic waste, industrial sludges, sewage, and medical waste. These types formed a category of their own and were, for protection of the landfill environment, not discarded directly along with the aforementioned types of waste. Due to a lack of regulation, however, there existed no comprehensive disposal plan for many of these wastes prior to the 1990s. This ambiguity vividly illustrates the colonial waste management scheme’s short- sighted centeredness around basic considerations concerning human health, while the environmental side effects of unregulated disposal strategies and their potential effects on human health were hugely underestimated until they had almost reached a point of no return. As Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection

423 Hills, Peter, and William Baron, “Hong Kong: The Challenge of Sustainability,” Land Use Policy 14.1 (1997): 48. 424 Ibid. 425 Ibid., 42. 208 Department ultimately had to acknowledge in its Waste Disposal Plan of 1989, chemical wastes had usually been simply poured down the nearest drain. For certain chemical wastes disposed of at landfill there exists a voluntary [!; emphasis added by the author] system of control. If a waste producer is in possession of a waste which he believes [emphasis added] may be toxic or hazardous he can [emphasis added] contact the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) for advice [not: orders or instructions; emphasis and comment added] as to how to deal with it. Provided EPD is supplied with sufficient information the waste producer will be advised as to how and where the waste may safely be disposed of. If the waste is suitable for co-disposal, a permit will be issued to the waste producer for taking the waste to the landfill [...] where it will be buried or co-disposed with municipal waste in a manner designed to ensure its eventual detoxification and/or neutralization. The types of chemical waste currently disposed of [...] include asbestos, oily sludge, tannery off- cuts, oil-water emulsions and inorganic compounds.426

It is well known that the environmental effects of toxic waste disposal became visible before long. The extremely high levels of both air, water, and soil pollution of the 1980s and 1990s were the result of a combination of insufficient application of advanced technology but also of persistent underregulation in a rigid administrative system that failed to comprehensively reform its restrictive inner mechanisms even after the handover of 1997. Although technological key components such as highly engineered landfills, sewage and toxic waste treatment plants as well as technologies that support landfilling such as industrial compostation, pulverization, and high density baling had all beenintroduced before the handover,427 Hong Kong’s environmental decision-making at the end of the twentieth-century was still lacking what Gouldson et al. describe as “policy learning”: a holistic reflection process that enables governments to draw progressive conclusions from flaws in past policies. In policy learning, knowledge about policies and the administrative and institutional background of one time shapes the corresponding policies and their framework in another time (or space); 428 in this case, learning from the colonial government’s failure to sufficiently regulate waste pollution could have guided the government of Hong Kong SAR to quickly implement groundbreaking advancements in environmental

426 Environmental Protection Department, Waste Disposal Authority, Waste Disposal Plan for Hong Kong, 25. 427 Cf. Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong, 37, 46, 58; Gouldson, Andrew et al., “Ecological Modernisation and Policy Learning in Hong Kong,” 325– 326. 428 Gouldson et al., “Ecological Modernisation and Policy Learning in Hong Kong,” 321. 209 policy, which ideally would have involved a democratic engagement of the public. But as Gouldson et al. explain (arguing in a similar manner as Hills and Barron), colonial Hong Kong’s technocratic approach to environmental problem solving remained a dominant component also in its political and administrative heritage beyond 1997.429 As the following chapter will address in depth, there are on-going problems in waste management, especially in landfill management, that are subject to exactly this historical mechanism. In comparison with Shanghai and Chengdu, the Hong Kong case shows that taking the route of a certain “Westernization” of waste management—for example, through the rationalization of sanitation techniques, industrialization of waste treatment processes, bureaucratization of environmental decision-making etc.—does not necessarily result in better pollution management. After all, the global West is still far from having solved its own problems with waste pollution (not to even speak of its ability to cut down waste production in the first place) itself. What colonial Hong Kong achieved through the measures described— compared to pre-war times, with relative success—was to remove waste from the public sphere and diminish direct exposure. This being a an achievement that should be recognized in itself, it did not prevent pollution problems to shift from the urban constructed to the environmental sphere, with the result that new solution strategies had to be built from scratch, but now under the restrictions of strongly increased complexity. In this particular case, the fact that Hong Kong was a British colony did not improve its prospects of developing a sustainable approach to waste management while pollution effects were still manageable, as colonial structures obstructed opportunities for pollution mitigation. Judging from its history of pollution-preventing performance, colonial Hong Kong cannot be given more credit for ‘success’ in waste management than Revolutionary China. If anything, Revolutionary China would receive additional credit for its attempt to establish a statewide circular economy; even though the attempt failed in practice, the concept itself bears the idea of long-term sustainability. In contrast, post-war Hong Kong sacrificed all environmental concerns to a growth doctrine. This argument is certainly not to downplay the environmental costs of China’s communist revolution; as has been shown and will be readdressed also in the following chapter, the planning economy has failed at truly achieving sustainable

429 Ibid., 323, 325–326. 210 waste management on the organizational level. Nonetheless, it is obvious that waste pollution in Hong Kong since the mid-twentieth century is intrinsically linked with both the rationale of capitalism as well as with the unintended effects of the British colonial government’s exploitation of Hong Kong’s ecosphere, which have been left as heritage for Hong Kong’s present government to overcome.

211 Part I: Summary

The aim of the first part of the thesis is to examine the historical institutional, legal, and organizational foundations of waste management in all three cities for their efficiency and compatibility with the natural environment. As has been shown, waste pollution emerged over time in all three of them. The emergence of waste pollution can be traced back to a variety of factors. While there was a general direct relation of the local degree of waste pollution to size and population density of each city, other factors were more indirect; they slowly formed problem structures that exacerbated over time, sometimes remaining unsolved throughout the entire period examined. Shanghai and Chengdu in particular were affected by certain discrepancies between national and local-level decision-making as well as a frequent discontinuation of already achieved standards. These disruptions in already established waste management structures were induced especially by repeated changes of government and leading political ideology, which shifted priorities in public health policy making. But although these changes significantly impeded a smooth evolution of Mainland China’s urban public health sectors, of course, major achievements also transcended time and different political systems: the important role each political period played for the establishment of waste management standards that the following political system ended up profiting from and building on is also an important characteristic of the twentieth-century fight against waste pollution. Yet, unsolved problems transmitted from one historical period to the next and new problems induced by the system change contributed to a gradual escalation of waste problems throughout the second half of the twentieth century. By the late twentieth century, the waste management systems in all three cities were being held back by incomplete or delayed institution building, on- going conflicts between legal standards and the actual policy implementation, long-term neglect of waste pollution as well as unrelated demographic challenges (population increase), which brought not only the public health sector but the entire local public administrations to the edges of their capacities. Chapter 1 has emphasized two main points: Firstly, a lack of centralization and standardization in lawmaking during the first four decades of the People’s Republic inhibited a comprehensive resolution of waste problems inherited from the Republican period. Of course, as the case of colonial Hong Kong has shown,

212 even centralized lawmaking does not necessarily lead to better pollution control if lawmakers’ and administrators’ priorities favor economic goals over the environment. Secondly, the comparison of the three cities shows that the factor of ‘Westernization’ of waste management in Hong Kong and Shanghai—often associated with ‘better’ control over waste accumulations—has historically had no notably positive impact on pollution prevention or mitigation; if anything, the almost strategic submission of environmental hygiene under economic goals in mid- to late twentieth-century Hong Kong is to be viewed even more critically than the pollution caused through the mechanisms of the planned economy in the People’s Republic. Not only would Hong Kong’s developmental status have allowed for the necessary investments into better waste management technology but it also—in contrast to the Mainland—had no comprehensive state-led recycling system in place that would have added a sustainable component. Besides giving a first introduction to local waste management practices and laying a special focus on more sustainable, circular approaches to waste management on the Mainland, namely the Chinese fertilizer system and the recycling economy under socialism, chapter 2 also presents an original statistical overview on the actual waste production in all three cities during the entire twentieth century. It is the first attempt to comparatively display Chinese urban waste production in a long-term perspective and in relation to urban population growth. The analysis shows a clear relation between urbanization and rising waste production for all three cities; it also reveals that total waste production grew at a pace fast enough to challenge the local public sanitation systems perpetually from the early twentieth century onward. Despite being based on a highly fragmented data background, this analysis allows for the first strong statements about the actual increase in waste production over time that have hitherto been presented in research on Chinese waste history. These statements, in turn, are indispensible for a more informed evaluation of historical pollution problems in Chinese cities. The statistical findings presented in chapter 2 should be compared to a variety of other cases from all over China in future studies, and could eventually, on the basis of richer data, be compared with other cities around the globe as well.

213 PART II:

WASTE POLLUTION AND NOTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY

While Part I of this thesis has presented an overview over the legal, institutional, and organizational background of waste management in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, Part II explores the tension between waste pollution and sustainable waste management solutions. Chapter 3 will present an historical overview on local characteristics of landfilling and basic machine-based waste management technology (especially incineration) and explain why landfilling, with all its negative environmental side effects, remained the dominant technology in all three cities. The development and degree of sophistication of waste management technologies is usually seen as an indicator of the degree of local or national economic development and type of government, and whether a society aspires to be technologically ‘future-oriented’ and economically ‘growth conscious’. Such paradigms are especially attributed to the Global North but apply for Republican and Post-revolutionary China just as much. As far as Revolutionary China is concerned, notions of future orientation and economic prosperity were of course subject to paradigm changes. As the following chapters will show, these paradigm shifts opened up new spaces for innovative, circular approaches to waste management but at the same time did not relieve the system from having to deal with the same challenges of final waste disposal that capitalist societies faced. At the same time, the case of Hong Kong will demonstrate that typical attributes of highly liberalist, capitalist economies— such as a growth orientation and the ambition to back up future growth with the necessary technological support—do not necessarily result in better waste management. For very different reasons that will be addressed in the following, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong all ended up with waste management systems that were only partially equipped to handle mid- to late-twentieth century mass waste production as it resulted from consumption and industrialization. Chapter 4 approaches waste management from the opposite angle, exploring historical structures of and potentials for sustainability and taking a close-up look at the Chinese society’s long-term inclination for recycling. It traces back the historical development of recycling since the Late Qing period, from an informal system carried out exclusively by single individuals to the absorption of that trade into national recycling under socialism, and back to informal Post-revolutionary 214 individual recycling. It argues that all three periods share an important common feature: Chinese circular economies were not only characterized by a constant flow of goods but also by a flow of knowledge—about resource consciousness, the transformability of goods and materials for various different purposes, and of the fact that waste can more than just ‘waste’. The analysis stays closely with this knowledge flow, looking particularly at individual knowledge-holders (informal recyclers) and knowledge transmission (especially by investigating a book genre that recorded recycling knowledge). As chapter 4 will show, the building of recycling knowledge throughout the twentieth century was characterized by a high level of continuity. Recycling knowledge was not only widely distributed but it also produced a high level of complexity and richness. This knowledge prevailed in the informal sector despite the failure to translate its potential into a truly sustainable approach at the planning level within the national recycling scheme. Yet, the national recycling system was able to integrate this knowledge into a communal approach. In contrast to this attempt stands Hong Kong, which, for the most part of the twentieth century, only had recycling because the penetrance of informal recycling structures, which were very similar to those on the Chinese mainland, was so strong that they also successfully operated under market conditions in Hong Kong.

3. Fighting and Creating Pollution with Technology: Historical Explanations for Landfill Dependence

Urban waste management strongly relies on the successful integration of administrative infrastructures with technology. Technology—other than science, which is the process of “seeking to reveal the natural laws that govern the world in which we live”—is the practical application of science, or the way to turn “scientific knowledge into utilitarian processes and devices”.430 Following this definition, technology is much more than just machines: narrowing the interpretation of technologies down to “tools” would not only mean to reduce it to a merely instrumental function in which such technology is always neutral and has no agency of its own. Broader definitions see it as a type of cultural system that possesses agency and shapes social life.431

430 McNeil, Ian, “Introduction: Basic Tools, Devices and Mechanisms,” 2–3. 431 Feenberg, Andrew, Critical Theory of Technology, 6–7. 215 A clear distinction between technology in a broader sense and “devices” or “machinery” is important as these terms are often used interchangeably even in scientific literature, however, they should not be mistaken for one another. Under the broader definition, all previously mentioned systematic approaches to waste management that presuppose a certain degree of knowledge or sophistication are technology. River dumping as a thoughtless act of disposal would certainly not fulfill the criteria, however, land reclamation with waste certainly would, and so would waste fermentation to make fertilizer. The term further includes all infrastructures that cater to these technologies, such as the previously discussed systems of waste collection and transport including waste receptacles and transport vehicles, methods of waste sorting as well as any form of purposeful treatment applied to the waste to influence its condition for a certain purpose. This chapter discusses two forms of waste management technology that turned out to be particularly crucial for the treatment of accelerating urban mass waste production throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the Global North: landfilling/reclamation (tianmai 填埋) and incineration (fenhua 焚化). They have been industrialized at different points in time and to a different degree in different places. Recycling (huishou 回收) played a special role and will therefore be discussed separately in chapter 4. In today’s mass waste management, the term “waste management technology” especially includes various forms of ‘hard’ (machine-based) technology that are indispensable for the handling of large waste accumulations in restricted spaces (especially in big cities). These include, for example, engineered landfilling, incineration, pulverization (niansui 碾碎), industrial composting (fajiao 发酵), baling (dabao 打包, compression storage), and industrialized recycling. Since the late nineteenth century, mechanized (or: machine-based) waste management has played a prominent role in the processing of large waste accumulations in industrialized or industrializing economies. Historian of technology Michael Adas illustrates how machine-based technology has been a determining factor of various societies’ scientific power at all times, but in particular during industrialization. In many historical cases it became a prerequisite for colonial dominance, allowing the colonizing civilizations to rely on their technological superiority, scientific theory, and control over nature to enforce and legitimate their power. In a similar manner, dominance over the

216 power of nature was achieved through the use of seemingly more powerful machines that were believed to act as “civilizers” of formerly irregular or unpredictable natural patterns.432 As we know, the success of the attempt to dominate nature has always depended from many other factors than just the degree of sophistication of the applied technology. Urban systems in particular have always had their own susceptibilities to technology failure that have been no less serious than climate or other environmental risk factors. Globally speaking, large urban structures that possess complex technological systems are very dependent on the stability of and predictable control over infrastructures, especially since cities have highly complex and interconnected modular structures.433 In the present context, the definition of “infrastructure” follows Paul N. Edward’s definition, which transgresses the reductionist understanding of it as systemic “hardware” and sees it as the result of a “sociotechnical” process that integrates hardware, organizations, knowledge transmission, identification and accessibility that allows it to become a “smooth-functioning background” in the developed world (while in the global South, different standards may apply).434 Within this definition, infrastructures become an indicator for developmental status, level of ‘modernization’ of a society, and control over environmental risk, and are therefore stability guarantors that not only provide peace of mind but also the freedom to actively regulate the degree of exposure to environmental impacts. 435 Yet, undoubtedly, infrastructures rely on the development and appropriate employment of technological components, which carry their own inherent risks. Urban geographers Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin point out the major danger behind any urban society’s reliance on complex technological (multi-)systems, which lies in the fact that well-functioning technological infrastructures are usually taken for granted as long as they work smoothly. The better they work, however, the more likely urban societies are to almost ‘blindly’ rely on systems that are more unstable and prone to more problems than they

432 Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, 204, 221, 251. 433 Unconditional belief in technology has been relativized in the context of on-going discourses on “risk technologies”, their unpredictability, and modern societies’ multifaceted dependence on them (cf. Beck, Ulrich, Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne). 434 Edwards, Paul N., “Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time, and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems,” 188. 435 Ibid., 189. 217 appear.436 In a complex urban structure, serious instabilities may occur if two or more components of an integrated infrastructural system—for example, the amount of waste production and the availability of suitable waste processing technology—develop at different speeds while still highly interdependent. According to Graham and Marvin, waste management is an especially sensitive example due to the limits of “time–space capabilities of [the] infrastructure networks” that it depends on. In similarity with urban water supply or transport systems, waste management is tightly embedded in spatial and geographical preconditions. It must, in most cases, be operated locally and fast, and disposal will occupy more and more space over time. Spatial capacities in combination with time resources are therefore most crucial for the system’s overall resilience and controllability.437 This chapter will explore some historical examples of the interdependence of natural preconditions (especially geographic constraints) and waste management strategies. In the case of Shanghai and Hong Kong, the (semi-)colonial setting added to complexity; even though the choice of waste management technology was never as an asset of colonial power in either case, it still created undesirable political dependencies. In this chapter, both cities stand as comparable examples for the similarity of waste management challenges in growing Chinese port metropolises, even if both took different paths in their economic development and societal organization as of the second half of the twentieth century. As will be shown, both cities suffered from the one-sidedness of their waste management approaches and would have profited from a larger variety of integrated waste management technologies at a much earlier stage. In contrast to Shanghai and Hong Kong, Chengdu’s twentieth century waste management infrastructure experienced a much more limited amount of pressure due to its much smaller size, its lower degree of industrialization and the absence of colonizing influences. As will be discussed, this combination of factors gave Chengdu more flexibility in its choice of waste management technology and, to a certain extent, protected it from the severe waste pollution that Shanghai and Hong Kong began to develop as of the 1950s.

436 Graham, Steven, and Marvin, Simon, Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, 23, 30, 180–181. 437 Ibid., 193. Other important systems such as energy or telecommunication are much less dependent on space and therefore experience far less pressure (ibid.). 218 As the only ‘terminal’438 solution for waste accumulations, landfilling was practiced in all three cities throughout the twentieth century. Especially in the cases of Shanghai and Hong Kong, landfill technology was repeatedly and consciously chosen over its mechanized alternatives (especially, incineration). It was the most convenient technique and had additional benefits, especially the possibility to reclaim land by filling it with waste. Major opportunity costs of landfilling, such as space consumption and pollution, played a huge role in both cities and paved the way for some of their most serious problems with waste management that prevailed in the 21st century. The long-term implications of landfilling for the local environments in Shanghai and Hong Kong are surprisingly comparable; at different points in time, historical events created dependences on landfill technology in both cities, in the course of more efficient technology combinations were inhibited. In the Introduction to this thesis, it has already been addressed that in the case of Hong Kong, this situation developed so many complications that it is still ongoing to the present day. Contemporary Hong Kong’s dependence on landfill technology cannot be thoroughly understood without a broader analysis of precedent historical events, which is why its case is investigated in special detail in chapters 3.1 and 3.2.

3.1. The Role of Reclamation in Hong Kong’s Historical Landfill Scheme

During the first half of the twentieth century, colonial Hong Kong had a few small dumping sites—for example, in the aforementioned Gin Drinkers Bay, which, at that time, was still located far outside of town and received only about 100 tons of city garbage every day.439 Official disposal of waste on sea was practiced as well; it was not regarded as a favorable approach, however, since waste matter was swept back into the harbor basin by circular currents if the transport boats did not go out far enough. 440 Uncontrolled incidents of dumping on sea were also reported. During waste transports by boat (for example, on the way to a dumping site), workers often tipped their boatloads directly into the waters. Uncoordinated water dumping was a huge problem as the local garbage consisted mainly of

438 Obviously, there is no such thing as a total removal of waste unless composition and disposal method allow for the material to decompose entirely in a landfill without any long-term toxic implications. Therefore, the term ‘terminal’ is used figuratively here. 439 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13. 440 “Government Notification No. 132,” 334. 219 lightweight matter that tended to float and drift around. During the early twentieth century, floating rubbish was one of the major factors of harbor pollution. The colonial government acknowledged early on that harbor dumping needed to stop, since a lot of it ended up along the shore from where it had to be picked up once again, doubling up the cleanup works. As the sanitary authorities noted in a waste management report of 1904, “there is more than enough of this drifting scum about the place already.”441 Consequently, the perfect way to kill three birds with one stone—getting rid of city waste, making sea dumping more controllable, and eventually profiting from it—was to find shallow bays along the coastline, enclose them by a sea wall, and fill up the water inside the wall with various types of waste until the bays filled up entirely and could slowly be turned into solid strips of straight coastline. Ideally, bays that were easily accessible from both sea and land were selected for this land reclamation process as they could be filled up quickly and evenly.442 Although the seawalls did not fully prevent leakage of floating rubbish from the reclamation sites and the colonial government realized early on that fermentation inside the sites led to “gas buildup and bad smell for long periods of time”, waste-based land reclamation was considered favorable since it prevented many other problems, for example, inland space consumption, inconvenient waste transports in mountainous territory, or having to invest into costly technologies, such as an incinerator (see chapter 3.2 for further details on the latter).443 With these important advantages, land reclamation became the principle method of waste disposal in colonial Hong Kong. Urban development in Hong Kong had, in fact, relied on land reclamation ever since the colony had been obtained in 1841, a time when Hong Kong was still not much more than a “barren rock” featuring only a thin leveled coastline and hardly any flat surfaces, with its valleys dominated by mangrove swamps, marshes, and mud-flats.444 Hudson states that the geographical conditions of Hong Kong were originally, and effectively still are, almost “unsuitable for rapid and well-ordered urban growth”.445 Colonial Hong Kong had always had too little leveled ground and

441 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13, “124–125. 442 “Preliminary Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hongkong [“Chadwick Report”],” 128– 129. 443 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13, 131–132. 444 Lumb, Peter, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 299–300. 445 Hudson, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 2. 220 especially lacked coastal plains both on the islands and on the mainland, yet Hong Kong’s significance for sea trade, and the geopolitical relevance of its harbor outweighed the disadvantages of its original physical shape. 446 In order to counterbalance for the spatial restrictions, the colonial government pushed land reclamation. In order to transform Hong Kong’s hilly surfaces into exploitable land, they needed to be leveled out; the coastline, in order to be even able to host an entire city, needed to expand. Early land reclamation stood in close contact with Hong Kong’s development as a trade entrepot and the necessity to enlarge room capacities for storage lots (“godowns”), the port industry, manufacturing, and office space for companies.447 The more crowded the harbor area became, the more the value of coastal flatland increased; Hong Kong quickly became fully dependent on the reclamation of additional leveled space from the sea, and would never have thrived economically without it.448 Hudson vividly describes the competition for space as follows: “By 1937, there were virtually no vacant tenements, and rents were still rising. [...] It would seem that in some areas extreme population pressure [was] almost pushing man into the sea.”449 Another, less obvious reason for manipulating the coastline was connected directly to waste management: with all city sewers draining directly into the harbor, the bay water became foul already during the late nineteenth century, especially in shallow areas where circular currents pushed the polluted water back towards the shore. Worried about possible public health threats that might derive from this situation, the colonial government was appreciative of the opportunity to extend the coastline into deeper water.450 The reclamation processes swallowed enormous amounts of solid material, thus city waste as well as the readily available construction rubble were the ideal resources. They accumulated in rising quantities, did not appear to ever seize, and their disposal would otherwise have occupied a lot of inland space. The curious fact that today’s shiny Hong Kong skyline is grounded on historical maritime dumping sites is, of course, no historical exception, but a common feature of urban development, especially in a colonial context. For example, Hong Kong’s reclamation history shares

446 Ibid., 2–7. Cf. also Glaser, R. et al., “Land Reclamation in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao.” 447 Hudson, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 29–32. 448 Ibid., 129. See also Luo Shangren 罗章仁, Xianggang tianhai zaodi jiqi yingxiang fenxi 香港填海造地及其影响分析, 220–221. 449 Hudson, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 144, 160. 450 Ibid., 79–81. 221 similarities with other water metropolises like New York, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Bombay, Cape Town, Singapore, and Macau.451 However, Hong Kong’s hilly topography is especially challenging for urban planning, which raised the local importance of land reclamation proportionally. The scope of reclamation in Hong Kong’s centermost districts between the mid-1800s and the year 2000 is displayed in the following map (peripheral reclamation is not included). Although it displays only the core section of Hong Kong’s total reclamation scheme, this map clearly shows the high proportion of surfaces formed before 1967 (dark and medium-light brown). According to Hudson’s, Lumb’s, and this author’s own findings, these were the crucial phases during which mixed waste was used as fill material.

Map 1. Phases of Land Reclamation in Hong Kong, Mid-1800s to 2000452

451 Hudson, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 2–7. Cf. also Glaser et al., “Land Reclamation in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao.” 452 The map is based on the figure “The Development of Reclamation in Hong Kong to 2000”, formerly displayed on the homepage of the Hong Kong Civil Engineering and Development Department (https://www.cedd.gov.hk/eng/about/organisation/chapter_11/qfig13_1.html). 222 3.1.1. The Decline of Waste-based Reclamation: The Case of Gin Drinkers Bay Landfill

After the Second World War, the reclamation process was sped up to create more space for Hong Kong’s fast-growing population and economy. By this time, the disadvantages of waste as fill material were already well known: it was not only light-weight but also highly water-absorbent and slow-draining, constantly trapping stagnant water within the reclamation sites. In order to speed up the transformation of garbage into building ground, local hills were terraced purposefully and the removed stone and soil were used as additional infill to weigh the fill material down and squeeze out retained water.453 By the mid-1950s, the necessity to achieve fast progress in reclamation had already reached such an urgency that, temporarily, any other way to handle waste than to use it in reclamation would have been counter-intuitive; an inter-governmental correspondence between the Director of Urban Services and the Department of Agriculture, Forests and Fishery of January 29, 1956, reveals that “the whole [emphasis added, N.F.] amount of refuse has been assigned for the reclamation process” and that any alternative assignment of waste matter (such as in regular landfills or incineration) would cause “consequent delay in forming new areas of dump”.454 The attempt to avoid delay in waste-to-land transformation, however, did not go without some unpleasant side effects for the environment that soon required resource-intensive marine engineering. The typical problems with enclosed marine areas filled with garbage are best explained by the example of the Gin Drinkers Bay landfill reclamation site. After decades of un- or half-official uncontrolled (“open” or “non-sanitary”) dumping on land, this area was officially transformed into a reclamation site in 1955, serving as a double facility for waste disposal: one part of remained a dumping site on land, situated right at the edge of the shore, and right next to it, an adjacent offshore reclamation site was opened.455 After various bad experiences with uncontrolled landfills—including problems with fly breeding control and the establishment of a truly plain, solid surface—, Gin Drinkers Bay was supposed to become the best-executed reclamation project

453 Lumb, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 300. 454 HKRS-716-1-11. 455 Wong, M.H., and Yu, C.T., “Monitoring of Gin Drinkers’ Bay Landfill, Hong Kong: I. Landfill Gas On Top of the Landfill.” 223 that the Colony had yet seen, yet works started out with only minimal technological investments. However, aside from the most basic drainage infrastructure, the maintenance of the dump depended entirely from manual labor and was lacking machine-based support.456 As the reclamation area directly connected with the open sea, separated from it only by an underwater wall, and the tides were constantly ‘gnawing’ on its edges, parts of the waste inside the enclosed area were constantly swept away, forming floating heaps in the surrounding waters. Due to its composition, the waste had to be weighted down to stay in place. But as the matter was compressed, anaerobic processes of decay within the material began to render newly filled areas unstable, causing them to “flake out” underwater and induce seabed silting and water pollution.457 Geological properties of the seabed around Hong Kong further exacerbated these side effects of reclamation: the soft marine ground caused the reclaimed areas to tilt or sink in and natural currents pushed into the reclamation site and destabilized it from below, pulling out decomposing particles through the seawall that began to settle in the bay, slowly shallowing it up. As the tides pulled at the dump, seawalls destabilized due to the currents’ pulling effects and the entire enclosed area started began to slide down into deeper water. Consulted marine engineers managed to counterbalance these processes with costly artificial stabilization of the seabed, but still predicted difficulties to tightly connect the dump with solid ground, and that the entire process would make the sea around it unsuitable for navigation. Closing the dump off with an all-watertight seawall was not an option as it was expected that the landfill would entirely turn foul if deprived from sea oxygen.458 These processes not only affected the marine ecosphere but the surrounding farmland as well: reclamation in the Gin Drinkers Bay area was accomplished at different levels at once, filling in the sea as well as valleys on land at the same time, draining already filled areas, and terracing them. Wastewater from the drainage works was discharged directly into the sea, passing by farming villages and leaking into surrounding soils in an area that was “intensely cultivated” by approximately 6,000 individuals whose agricultural livelihood was significantly

456 HKRS-716-1-11. 457 Ibid. 458 Ibid., 224 affected by the contamination.459 And they were not the only ones affected: with the aforementioned population increase and the steadily rising occupation of open spaces in the New Territories, the Gin Drinkers Bay area soon became flanked by new urbanizing neighborhoods, which, especially during the hot and humid summer months, were exposed to smells so strong that they were forced to “close tight their windows”.460 In April 1960, the Director of Urban Services stated in reply to a new resident’s complaint letter, of which he received many: I am sorry to say that, at present, there is precisely nothing that this department can do to lessen the smell. The plain fact is that refuse always does smell. Large quantities of refuse, such as accumulate in Hong Kong, smell proportionately worse. […] Proposals are now being considered for alternative methods of disposal of mainland refuse, but it is most unlikely that they will materialise for at least three years.461

With Hong Kong’s refugee crisis at its peak, his statement reflects that public administration had more pressing problems than to relieve a restricted area in the New Territories from landfill nuisance, especially since at the time, reclamation and landfilling were colonial Hong Kong’s sole means of waste disposal. With the entire New Territories consecutively filling up with new people, moving unpopular dumping grounds to another location was no long-term solution, either. In the meantime, however, land reclamation with city garbage had become increasingly problematic, especially in combination with the previously discussed environmentally damaging side effects of Hong Kong’s rapid industrialization. The colonial government noticed that reclaimed areas filled with organic waste were not stable enough to support Hong Kong’s increasingly high-rise urban structures as gases slowly built up inside them. Some long-reclaimed areas showed severe instabilities that caused buildings to crack and tilt, requiring time- consuming and costly efforts to fill in the already reclaimed grounds with stabilizing materials such as building debris, decomposed granite, and concrete.462 Together with the toxic discharge from local industries and the unfiltered contents of Hong Kong’s ubiquitous flush toilets—the adjacent nineteenth-century sewer system carried treated freshwater and waste water in different channels but had not yet been modernized and drained directly into the sea—reclamation was one more factor that polluted an already seriously burdened marine ecosystem. As of

459 Inglis, A. et al., Report on Reclamation at Gin Drinker’s Bay, 1–5, 7–8. 460 Wong and Yu, “Monitoring of Gin Drinkers’ Bay Landfill, Hong Kong; HKRS 70-3-461. 461 HKRS-716-1-11. 462 Lumb, “Land Reclamation in Hong Kong,” 305–309; 312. 225 the mid-1960s, the colonial authorities began to introduce countermeasures to ease harbor pollution by installing a filter system for urban sewage but let the private industrial sector continue its previous practice.463 Simultaneously, steps were taken to phase out the use of waste in reclamation, mainly by setting up an incineration scheme (see chapter 3.1.2) and by transitioning to “regular” (inland) landfilling with updated safety standards. In 1973, the Gin Drinkers Bay landfill was converted into Hong Kong’s first controlled tipping site upon the release of the Treatment and Dumping of Toxic Wastes Bill (released the same year) that legally prescribed to make all new waste dumps “environmentally safe”. Theoretically, this Bill put an end to unregulated industrial waste disposal, as it required all industries to neutralize waste before dumping it, yet the colonial government admitted that such neutralization procedures were insufficiently controlled—several years later, in 1979, it acknowledged that waste was being disposed of “indiscriminately” and that this circumstance was becoming a “threat to public safety”. With the issuing of another new piece of legislation, the “Waste Disposal Bill 1979”, the colonial government intended to improve control on industrial waste, requiring every act of disposal to obtain a government license first.464 Still little seemed to progress. Notably, the new measures were directed foremost at the protection of human health, while the interconnections of human health and long-term environmental damage were underestimated.

3.1.2. Waste Pollution and a Beginning Landfill Dilemma: Mitigation Attempts of the Late Colonial Phase

The simplest possible method of landfill disposal is called open dumping: waste is simply left to sit untreated in a designated area, at best covered lightly with soil or sand. Open landfills are sensitive to weather and climatic influences and may cause air pollution or groundwater contamination through leakage.465 Controlled tipping is an engineered approach that counterbalances the environmental and public health risks of open dumping through sealed layers within a waste dump in order to reduce spill-outs and other contaminating impacts to a minimum. Usually

463 Public Works Department, Report on Sewage Disposal in Urban Areas of Hong Kong, 1–2. 464 HKRS-337-4-5401; HKRS-70-8-3852. 465 Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes, 10, 168. 226 the norm in the Global North today, controlled tipping technology was first developed in England in 1915 and has continuously evolved ever since.466 Given colonial Hong Kong’s focus on the use of waste in land reclamation it does not come as a surprise that this technique was introduced here no earlier than half a century after its invention. But although all new municipal dumping sites of the 1970s and after were planned out as controlled tips, the protective function of sealed layers was challenged by disproportionally high need to carefully drain them, as the dumps were exposed to Hong Kong’s high amounts of annual rainfall. In the early 1970s, 57 million gallons of unfiltered sewage drained daily from Hong Kong’s landfills into the harbor, their concentration of toxins estimated at up to 30 percent stronger than in untreated solid waste.467 By this time, the Hong Kong society already showed some of the typical characteristics of the consumerism and throwaway attitude of developed countries. Compared to other global emerging cities’ waste production, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, or Australia, Hong Kong already scored an average waste production increase of one to four percent. It was only significantly scored out by Japan, which, due to its economic boom of the time, stood out with an annual waste generation increase of nine percent.468 In the minutes of a meeting of June 18, 1973, the Urban Services Department openly expressed skepticism concerning the availability of future dumping space in the New Territories for the first time. By this time, it had already become difficult to find suitable sites, and smaller sites seemed to fill up faster than new sites were available. As 370 tons of waste were disposed of daily in the New Territories alone around this time, more and more rural communities were affected by landfill nuisance in their vicinity. Consequently, many engaged in NIMBY protests, signed petitions against the soil and water pollution that the dumps caused, filed complaints or even boycotted waste transports to express their frustration. The colonial government reacted by opening up new sites in very different locations each time: by the time of the return of the Colony in 1997, Hong Kong had gone through over thirteen landfill sites located increasingly at the very edges of the region.469 Due to the ever-rising increase in waste production, even the fact that the Urban Services Department

466 Cf. Cooper, Timothy, “Burying the ‘Refuse Revolution’: The Rise of Controlled Tipping in Britain, 1920–1960,” 1039. 467 Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes, 93–94, 99, 101–102. 468 Ibid., 11, 18, 20. 469 HKRS-337-4-5401. 227 invested into a new, Japanese-built pulverization and compostation plant at Chai Wan in 1977 to assist the incinerators (see chapter 3.2 for details on Hong Kong’s troubled incineration scheme) and support volume reduction in landfills, did not significantly change the trend. By this time, Hong Kong already produced 4,000 tons of waste per day, an amount that was estimated to double by no later than 1985. Another investment into the construction of a toxic waste treatment plant was made in 1983 when it was ultimately acknowledged that the local sewage plants could no longer deal with heavy industrial discharge. Having to make all of these major investments within a short time frame, the colonial government became increasingly concerned about the rising costs waste management might produce in the future. It even considered outsourcing waste management altogether to save costs but then followed its expert consultants’ advice to avoid privatization for better control over the environment.470 It is obvious that by this time, city garbage had almost entirely forfeited its former value as a resource. Although a limited amount was still used in reclamation in the form of compost, which sometimes also served as raw material for some industries, for the production of animal fodder, or as a top layer in controlled landfills, the ways to recycle waste once it had entered the municipal disposal chain were very limited under the local technological infrastructure of the time.471 It is notable that the colonial government, despite all of the mentioned shortcomings, did take precautions to leave behind a landfill scheme to its successors that would at least buy the new government time. Certainly, the three decades between the 1990s and the 2020s that the plan covered may have looked like a relatively long time, but with regard to inexhaustible waste production, they essentially were not. In 1989, the Environmental protection Department published its new “Waste Disposal Plan for Hong Kong”, which determined the options for waste treatment and disposal during and after the 1997 handover. According to the motto to “ensure the environmentally acceptable disposal of waste in the most cost efficient manner available”, three new and highly engineered top-standard megadumps were supposed to keep Hong Kong covered for decades. 472 According to the Department’s estimates of the time, Hong Kong’s waste

470 HKRS-70-8-3852; HKRS-545-1-389-1. 471 Cf. Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes, 133–134, 136. 472 Environmental Protection Department, Waste Disposal Authority, Waste Disposal Plan for Hong Kong, III. 228 production had risen even more quickly than ever imagined: the Colony now had to dispose of 22,500 tons daily, including 4,600 tons of household waste, 1,800 tons of industrial and commercial waste, 6,500 tons of construction waste, 2,000 tons of livestock waste, 4,000 tons of water works sludges, and 2,600 tons of pulverized fuel ash from industrial combustion processes and waste incineration.473 Three new landfills—abbreviated as NENT, WENT, and SENT for “Northeast, West, and Southeast New Territories”—were built to store compressed and containerized waste in the safest way possible. They were also designed to trump incineration in cost-efficiency, since incineration had become objectionable both for financial reasons and for lack of public support (see chapter 3.2 for a detailed analysis). To save costs, all three landfills were privately operated but government-controlled. The colonial government considered the outsourcing as beneficial due to its assumed better opportunities for “professional experience, provision of financial incentives for good management and greater operational flexibility”.474

3.2. The Failure of Incineration Technology in Semi-colonial Shanghai and Colonial Hong Kong

3.2.1. First Considerations on Incineration Both the Shanghai Municipal Council and the British-Hong Kong government considered introducing machine-supported waste management around the turn of the twentieth century, and played with the idea to invest into an incineration plant. As concerns Chengdu, it is unlikely that mechanized incineration was considered or even discussed during this early phase, which is why this section focuses exclusively on Shanghai and Hong Kong. During her research, the author of this thesis has not come across any indication for machine-based waste management in Chengdu prior to the 1950s; the technologies used instead are discussed in chapter 3.3.2. During the early 1900s, the question of incineration in both Shanghai and Hong Kong was dominated by the question of whether or not it was worthwhile to keep up with Europe’s latest technological advancements. It was not really a question of immediate necessity but rather one of prestige, ‘modernity’, and demonstration

473 Ibid., I. 474 Ibid., III-IV; 65–67. 229 of sanitary control. The Sanitary Board of Shanghai’s International Settlement was first to discuss it shortly before the turn of the century: having practiced landfilling and land reclamation for over fifty years since the 1840s, 475 it suggested to facilitate waste management through the investment into a “refuse destructor” (incinerator), a British invention of the 1870s that had quickly caught on all over urban Europe and the United States. The technology was lauded in Western industrialized urban areas due to the following qualities: its capacity to process large waste accumulations quickly; its general perception as “clean and efficient” (as opposed to ‘offensive’ open landfills); the element of “destruction” of the waste, which created the impression of actually getting rid of it—supporters of the technology were largely oblivious of the fact that incineration created its own toxic residues—; and 4) its economically desirable side-effect of what today is called “waste-to-energy”, i.e. the generation of electricity from the produced heat.476 In June 1899 the North China Herald first reported the Shanghai Sanitary Board’s interest in the technology, immediately suspecting that all hopes were in vain, as its introduction to Shanghai would probably, “like almost any other suggestion, be pigeon-holed by the Government, whose shelving all works which involve any outlay grows hourly greater”.477 Two years later, the paper again reported that the topic had come up in a ratepayers’ meeting where it was lamented that the International Settlement, despite the local sanitary authorities’ previous plea for the technology, was still idly awaiting concrete steps to actually build the recommended “destructor”. The majority of local ratepayers, joined by ratepayers from the French Concession, also expressed its support of the technology as they had become concerned that waste production in the Settlement was getting out of hand. It already amounted to “tons per year”478 in comparison with previous decades and causing increasingly high disposal costs. They further stated that with regard to the expected future growth of both foreign settlements, a

475 Much in similarity with colonial Hong Kong, but on a smaller scale, Shanghai’s three municipalities continuously straightened out local river courses and dried up swampland with municipal waste. Cf. MacPherson, A Wilderness of Marshes. 476 Clark, J.F.M., “‘The Incineration of Refuse is Beautiful’: Torquay and the Introduction of Municipal Refuse Destructors,” 256–257. 477 “A Refuse Destructor Recommended,” North China Herald and South China and China Gazette, 26 June, 1899, 1159. 478 This observation was, of course, inaccurate, as the actual waste production per annum was much higher than just “tons”. See the detailed documentation of waste production in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong over time in chapter 2.2.1. and the Appendix. 230 joint incinerator right at the district boarder between the International Settlement and French Concession would prevent future complications in waste management.479 In the end, however, both the International Settlement’s Shanghai Municipal Council and the French Concession’s Administration Municipale de Changhai remained inactive on the matter, and the discussion was dropped. As concerns the Chinese Municipality of Shanghai, there are no records of any concrete interest in the technology at this point in time. Hong Kong’s Sanitary Board began to discuss possible prospects of incineration in 1902 as the technology seemed a suitable solution for fast-growing waste accumulation. The Legislative Council, however, was strictly against the erection of a “destructor” because of the huge financial investment that would be necessary for its import, construction, and maintenance. It also calculated that Hong Kong—in order to incinerate its entire waste accumulations—would need three incinerators instead of just one. As a matter of fact, around the turn of the century, an incineration plant could only process about a maximum 38 tons of waste per day, while Hong Kong’s daily waste production was already estimated at 100 tons.480 Aside from the expensive acquisition of a plant, its operation and maintenance was also costly, as it included a full-time staff of presumably “300 sweepers and 40 basket coolies, 495 cart coolies, 12 Chinese foremen, a European in charge and three Chinese stokers for each Destructor” to care of it around the clock. All “coolies” would have to be offered housing, and the entire staff would have to be employed in addition to Hong Kong’s already existing fleet of workers employed in street cleaning. The possibility to generate energy from incineration was appreciated, but it was not expected to counterbalance or outperform any running costs. The colonial government also considered the technology rather unsuitable for Hong Kong conditions because it could not operate during typhoons. As Hong Kong had a high frequency of bad weather seasons, large build-ups of unprocessed waste were to be expected for extended periods of time during each year.481 Although the colonial government thoroughly weighed the arguments for and against the construction of an incinerator in Hong Kong, it remained highly

479 “Ratepayers’ Meeting,” North China Herald and South China and China Gazette, 27 March, 1901, 575. 480 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13, 129, 137; Maxwell, William H., The Removal and Disposal of Town Refuse, 129. 481 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13, 129, 133–137. 231 skeptical of its alleged benefits. In contrast to the Legislative Council’s reserved stance, Hong Kong’s English-speaking elites were strongly in favor of the new technology. Various articles in the South China Morning Post reflect an on-going discussion on the topic held during the early 1900s, during which the Hong Kong government’s hesitant stance was heavily criticized and the perceived benefits of incineration laid out against the disadvantages of landfilling and ocean dumping. The rhetoric of these articles also reflects dissatisfaction with Hong Kong’s technological ‘backwardness’ in comparison to Europe and other colonies, as displayed in the following quotation: There is now in operation in Singapore what is badly needed in Hongkong—namely, a refuse destructor. […] In Hongkong, notwithstanding the enormous development of the city, the Government still clings to its antiquated, objectionable and dangerous method of disposing of the town refuse, which consists of dumping it on the Praya, transferring it to junks, which are supposed to convey it beyond the harbour limits, and there throwing it into the sea. […] Its introduction in Hongkong should really need no advocacy, and the Government might well inquire of the Singapore municipality as to the cost of a destructor and their experience of its beneficent results.482

The South China Morning Post further criticized the colonial government’s perceived stinginess in the context of technological modernization, and—much in similarity with the North China Herald’s critique of the Shanghai Municipal Council—its frequent habit to postpone certain decisions indefinitely: […] the question of providing an incinerator or refuse destructor for the Colony has been discussed time and again by our legislators. On each occasion, though, the idea was shelved on the account of the expense or its alleged impracticability. Yet, it seems a disgraceful state of affairs in a city of the dimensions of Victoria, boasting the largest harbour of the world […], that the authorities do not adopt a more effective and hygienic plan of disposing of the city garbage than the antiquated method at present in vogue. […] Therefore, […] in order to better the fair name of Hongkong’s pretty harbour, let us have an incinerator. The Colony can well afford it.483

In its overall consideration of the matter, the colonial government actually did go as far as to designate a location for a possible future incinerator: the far-Western end of Hong Kong Island in the still sparsely populated Kennedy Town, where the frequent eastern winds would blow any unpleasant smoke away from downtown.

482 “Editorial Article 2,” South China Morning Post, 17 March, 1905, 4. 483 “Editorial Article 1,” South China Morning Post, 23 May, 1905, 6. 232 Eventually, however, the financial reservations prevailed and the Legislative Council did not follow through with the project.484 By the 1920s, waste production in Shanghai’s International Settlement had accelerated so much that the Shanghai Municipal Council reevaluated the possibility to install an incinerator. An archived report of December 1920, entitled “The Future Disposal of House Refuse”, noted that annual waste generation in the International Settlement now amounted to 100,000 tons (equaling 274 tons per day, which was already close to three times as much as twenty years before) and that traditional methods of disposal were bound to fail. Landfill space was becoming sparse, and waste transports were forced further and further out of the settlement in order to reach new dumping sites.485 River dumping, which had been “common before 1909”, had been banned by the Shanghai Police and had also received harsh criticism from the foreign harbor authorities (Whangpoo Concervancy Board486). Finally, as addressed previously, local peasants did not have the capacities to process ever-growing loads of organic waste and transform them into fertilizer—they could only handle as much as they really needed.487 The Shanghai Municipal Council was well aware of the fact that its waste management system was under strong pressure but continued to rely on the region’s spatial capacities and remained hesitant to invest in alternative technologies. A major reason for its prevailing skepticism was the composition of household waste in Shanghai, which was considered unsuitable for incineration. Experts had estimated that Shanghai waste would be much harder to incinerate than European waste and that it was uneconomic to burn waste that produced such little energy output. An undated Municipal Council report (according to its content, it probably dates from the late 1930s and describes the situation in retrospective), entitled “Notes on Refuse Disposal in Shanghai”, presents information on the “quality” of Shanghai waste and its implications for incineration. The waste was of “poor calorific quality”, far too moist, short on recyclable valuables, and “heavy in non-combustible content”, which led the consulted experts to recommend an extension of the already existing landfill and

484 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13, 143. 485 SMA, U1-3-1310. 486 The Whangpoo Conservancy Board was created in 1842 as a selection of appointed members of the SMC. Its duty was to organize and supervise river construction; significant interventions were continuously required to meet the needs of the new Shanghai port, ease navigation, and prevent silting (cf. Smith, Helen L., “Shanghai and Its Hinterland,” 177). 487 SMA, U1-3-1310. 233 reclamation scheme over an incinerator. The possibility to retrieve valuables from waste matter has been an advantage of incineration technology since its invention, as already some of the earliest models of incineration plants provided rudimentary, semi-automatic waste sorting systems. Shanghai waste, however, allegedly hardly ever contained any significant amounts of valuables that could have provided an additional source of profit anyways. Besides repeating the economic disadvantages of the technology, the abovementioned report also expresses concerns about pollution for the fist time: It was proved that no income was forthcoming from the production of heat, the salvage of metals, glass, etc., or the sale of clinker or flue dust [… and] that the capital cost would be heavy. [… In addition,] the method is not entirely satisfactory, as the elimination of offensive odours from the smog is extremely difficult when the incoming refuse is wet.488

In Hong Kong, too, pollution was identified early on as one of the most prominent downsides of incineration: the Hong Kong government expressed similar concerns when a discussion about the long-planned Kennedy Town incinerator flared up once more during the 1920s. The reason for a reactivation of the discussion was not only the rising waste production but also an increasing pollution of the harbor front and local beaches with waste that had previously been dumped offshore or spilled out of reclamation sites. Thus, incineration was initially suggested as a countermeasure against such pollution. However, an issue of the Hong Kong Hansard of 1923 reflected on waste quality, the problem of final disposal of incineration residues, and possible air pollution, and came to the final conclusion that incineration was not desirable under the given circumstances: The rubbish is largely of a light vegetable nature and it requires a third of its weight in fuel to consume and leaves a third in slag to be got rid of. The question of the disposal of the slag is also a matter of great difficulty. At Home [in Britain] it is very much used for road repairs, but here we have much better and entirely accessible material in granite [from mountain leveling]. […] It could be used in reclamation, but it would have to be taken there. […] The town is very narrow and the destructor would have to be at one end or the other and all refuse would have to be taken along the streets as now. An incinerator must be more or less a nuisance to people in the neighbourhood, and I think it would cause much more trouble than the finding of an occasional cabbage leaf on a bathing beach now does.489

488 SMA, U1-14-2813. 489 “Report on the Meeting on 18th October, 1923,” Hong Kong Hansard: Reports of the Meetings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Session 1923, 146. 234 Ultimately, it can be assumed that the main reason for the repeated rejection of incineration technology in both Shanghai and Hong Kong was the unwillingness to make a large financial investment. Despite the expressed concerns about the quality of the waste, both the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and the Shanghai Municipal Council were aware that incineration was successfully practiced in various other colonies in British South and Southeast Asia: Singapore, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Karachi, and Madras (today’s Chennai) all had working incinerators already by the turn of the century; the conditions of local climate and waste composition, both of which were comparable to Shanghai and Hong Kong, did not form an obstacle there.490

3.2.2. The Limits of Landfilling in Shanghai’s Foreign Concessions With regard to their previous decision against incineration, the Shanghai Municipal Council and the Administration Municipale did not foresee that their waste disposal strategy was bound to enter into an inter-municipality conflict over waste management just a couple of years later. At the surface, this conflict concerned the environmental consequences of river dumping, which had been banned in 1909 but had since continued illegally. In reality, however, it was about the expression of political power and control over land use. Around the mid- 1920s, the authorities of Greater Shanghai began to press the Shanghai Municipal Council and Administration Municipale for higher taxes to prolong their leases for landfill space, all of which was, by this time, situated on Chinese jurisdiction ground because the rapidly urbanizing foreign concessions had outgrown their own empty spaces.491 When they refused to accept the new conditions, the Greater Shanghai government brought another means of pressure into play: it pointed out the foreign municipalities’ responsibility for environmental damage caused by river dumping, and threatened to enforce consequences if nothing were done about it. Indeed, river dumping, which frequently happened during the concessions’ waste transports had severely polluted the local waterways, which the foreign authorities also acknowledged. By the mid-1920s, the silting of local riverbeds—a side effect of waste dumping—, had already reached an “alarming” state. It had slowed down river traffic so much that the creeks were constantly

490 “Government Notification No. 132,” The Hongkong Government Gazette March 4 (1899), 334; PRO, HKRS 202-1-1. 491 SMA, U38-1-967. 235 congested with boats. This not only obstructed the transport of goods but also the daily delivery of waste to the riverside dumping sites, which were located outside the urban areas on Chinese territory. Consequently, even more waste was thrown in the waterways on a daily basis because the garbage contractors could not reach the dumping sites and felt entitled to simply empty their boatloads into the water. 492 The Greater Shanghai authorities decided to use this problematic situation and the foreign concessions’ role in it to their own advantage: in October 1928, they strictly banned all ‘foreign’ waste disposal on Chinese territory. They even blocked the waterways for the settlements’ waste transports by means of the water police and the military, which they were in sole control of. According to its own statement, as recorded in a letter from its secretariat to the Shanghai Municipal Council, which is preserved in English translation, the Chinese municipality declared itself no longer responsible for the foreigners’ waste. Its major responsibility, according to the rhetoric of the letter, was to keep “its own district in a sanitary condition”. This task, so the letter declared, had been compromised by the acceptance of additional waste from the foreign districts, which the Chinese municipality was no longer willing no longer support.493 For the International Settlement and French Concession, this resolution caused immediate and severe consequences. Apart from practicing land reclamation on their own territories, they had completely relied on the possibility to dispose of a large part of their daily waste accumulations far outside their own jurisdiction areas. All of a sudden, available landfill space had shrunk to a minimum. The spatial restrictions became almost immediately visible: already in January 1929, the Shanghai Municipal Council’s Commissioner of Public Works, J.E. Needham, noted in a memorandum that all waste would now need to be squeezed into small landfills along the Huangpu River, and remarked that those fills would soon reach capacity. Besides that, he considered landfilling in close proximity to residential areas and the harbor as problematic; both local villagers and the Harbour Master were already strongly objecting it. But despite the pressing situation, both the Shanghai Municipal Council and the Administration Municipale refused to pay the higher taxes offered by the Greater Shanghai government in return for new landfill space—they reconsidered incineration instead.494

492 SMA, U1-3-788. 493 Ibid. 494 Ibid. 236 Investigating the rhetorics of the conflict, it seems possible that this conflict was not merely an argument about taxes or environmental hygiene but also an expression of political tension between the Chinese and foreign authorities. The late 1920s were marked by the Chinese elites’ growing hope to slowly get rid of foreign influence and consolidate their own political power in China’s urban centers. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Chinese elites’ economic power and influence in Shanghai grew rapidly while they simultaneously witnessed the increasing political instability of the Chinese Republic.495 Both factors contributed to an intensifying nationalist and anti-foreign political climate. Therefore, the Greater Shanghai authorities’ resolute position in this conflict is not surprising; as nationalist motives were a major driving force in inter- municipal diplomacy in Shanghai, some heated-up up emotions can be observed in the described case. For example, on October 5, 1928, the Municipal Council of Greater Shanghai had first expressed in a letter to the Shanghai Municipal Council (preserved in English translation) that the Settlement’s inaction towards the problem of river dumping and silting of the waterways showed their “indiscriminate” stance “against the Chinese” who had issued a ban against river dumping.496 In another letter to the Shanghai Municipal Council from December 4, 1928 (also preserved in English translation) the Council Secretariat of Greater Shanghai explained that they could no longer tolerate foreign pollution of Chinese territory and water.497 Despite the agitation expressed in these words, the conflict was apparently not of great concern among the wider Chinese public in Shanghai. The Shenbao, for example, sporadically reported about the river dumping, the concessions’ lack of space for waste disposal, and their exploration of incineration technology to overcome these problems, but did not explicitly address the background conflict and the emotions it raised. It would be speculative to determine whether or not the details of the conflict were actively concealed from the public or the Shenbao, or whether or not the Shenbao simply took a rather neutral, descriptive stance towards the matter.498

495 Bergère, Shanghai, 153. 496 SMA, U1-16-2133. 497 SMA, U1-3-788.” 498 Cf. articles in the Shenbao such as “Zujie laji qingqi Pujiang 租界垃圾傾棄浦江,” Shenbao 申報 [Shanghai News], 18 June, 1929; “Laji fenhuachang jiang dong gong… mingnian jiuyue jian 237 Half a year later, the conflict was still not resolved. The Shanghai Municipal Council and Administration Municipale—both suffering the consequences of the ban—were still forced to dispose of their waste by filling in remaining low-lying strips of land alongside the banks of the Huangpu river within their own territories. In the meantime, both municipalities gathered information on incineration technology from the Americas, Europa, Japan, and Singapore in order to find the suitable technology that matched the local conditions. In fact, their situation was desperate. In June 1929, the Shanghai Municipal Council’s abovementioned Commissioner of Public Works, Needham, suspected in a written statement that the Greater Shanghai government was unlikely to lift the ban, as the dispute on waste was “symbolic for most disputes between our municipalities, and it is a matter of principle to abide by the decision”. It has to be pointed out that neither municipality acted in a very diplomatic manner. In fact, the Council’s response to the Chinese authorities’ pressure was quite aggressive: it now actively provoked the Greater Shanghai government by deliberately having waste poured into the waterways, and even publicly declaring its intention to continue to do so despite the ban. The French Administration Municipale, which had not continued to dump waste into the rivers since the onset of the conflict, did not take part in this protest and even argued against the Shanghai Municipal Council’s strategy, but its objections were ignored. Needham, justifying his department’s actions, stated that river dumping was “an act of despair, not demonstrative threatening”, and that the waste accumulated faster than the he could get rid of it. In reality, the Shanghai Municipal Council had no intention to give in to the claims made by the Greater Shanghai government in return for a renewed ground lease contract, as the contract conditions would not only have included higher taxes but also requests for various permissions that were supposed to benefit the Chinese economy in Shanghai, for example, permission for Chinese building projects in the concessions or licensing for Chinese businesses on foreign premises, all which both foreign concessions had previously refused.499 Agitated by the Shanghai Municipal Council’s open provocation, the Chinese Ratepayers’ Association entered the debate in June 1929, sending statements to in which they accused the foreigners of “deliberately dump[ing] waste into Suzhou Creek” and “wantonly ke wang luocheng 垃圾焚化廠將動工明年九月間可望落成,” Shenbao 申報, 19 October, 1930; “Zujie laji wenti 租界垃圾问题,” Shenbao 申報, 12 August, 1932. 499 SMA, U1-14-2813; U1-16-2133. 238 caus[ing] pollution and a public health threat to the Chinese population of Shanghai”.500 Although all three parties acknowledged that this inter-municipality diplomatic crisis had become severely muddled, no common solution was found. During the debates of June 1929, the Commissioner of Public Works of Greater Shanghai501 warned that the question of waste removal was becoming “a political weapon” and that the river dumping resembled “blackmail in order to obtain concessions that [the Shanghai Municipal Council and Administration Municipale] would not get otherwise”. He suspected that a continuation of the conflict would only make the question of future waste disposal harder to resolve and even suggested to install a common inter-municipality incineration scheme instead of continuing with the previous practice. Such a common waste management scheme, however, was never put into realization.502 Under the pressure of the Greater Shanghai government as well as the Whangpoo Conservancy Board, which uttered serious concerns about water safety if the river dumping continued, the Shanghai Municipal Council and Administration Municipale ultimately took refuge in the installation of incineration plants on their own territories. The Shanghai Municipal Council commissioned two incinerators of the “Balmer” and “Lurgi” models—widely used models in Europe during the time—in August 1932 but expected both plants to achieve “poor results economically” due to the aforementioned suboptimal preconditions for incineration in Shanghai. The French Concession invested into one plant of the “Camia” brand, which was common in France at the time.503 Due to the concessions’ lack of space, all three plants were situated in close proximity to residential. Soon, residents began to send countless letters to both municipal governments, complaining that the emitted smoke was causing them discomfort and health problems. Especially in the French Concession, where the plant was located literally in the middle of town, several neighborhoods were strongly affected by the emissions of the plant. A Chinese resident, for example, requested

500 SMA, U1-3-789. 501 His name is archaically transcribed as “Hu Hou Chi” in the previously quoted records of the Shanghai Municipal Council, but the characters are missing and no further evidence on his personality was found in the documents obtained during the research for his thesis. Even through consultation of the comprehensive list of important personalities in Shanghai history, as displayed in the Shanghai da cidian (Wang Ronghua 王荣华, ed., Shanghai da cidian (xia): Renwu pian, fulu 上海大辞典（下）：人物篇、附录), his proper name could not be reconstructed. 502 SMA, U1-3-789. 503 SMA, U38-1-968; U1-14-2813; U38-1-2711. 239 the Administration Municipale in September 1933 to return to its former consciousness of public hygiene and put a stop to the smoke. A French resident expressed his experiences in May 1934: “ces fumes âcres et malodorantes […] provoquent en plus d’un malaise général, une irritation de la gorge et des yeux. Ces fumées et odeurs, sans aucun doute malsaines, pénètrent même dans les maisons alors que portes et fenêtres sont fermées […].” A British resident described in May 1935 that “[t]he entire locality which is fairly populated is, when the incinerators are in operation, covered with a smoky haze and its accompanying stench and dirt […]. When they are in operation, which is most of the time, the smoke is exceedingly obnoxious.”504 Soon, incineration seemed to have become even more objectionable than any other waste management solution. It even turned out to be more uneconomic than previously expected. Due to the high moisture content of the local waste, it was necessary to store and pre-dry huge amounts of waste in-between collection and incineration. This intermediate step not only generated delays and additional struggles with the available space, but the incineration plants were also never fed to their full capacity, which resulted in energy loss and increased costs. In addition, far more waste was produced on a daily basis than the incinerators could process in the first place, even if they had been running at maximum capacity, which was 200 tons per day (or 73,000 tons per year); during the year 1932, the International Settlement produced 338,720 tons of waste. At least, half of it (169,360 tons) could be sent to the countryside for fertilizer production, but out of the remaining half only 38,592 tons were successfully incinerated. The much bigger surplus of 130,768 tons still had to be shipped to various landfills.505 Finally, incineration did not even prevent river dumping: in 1935, the Shanghai Municipal Council still had a daily 1,5 tons of waste (547,500 tons per year) discarded in the local waterways in order to get rid of it faster, and despite continuous river dredging, which the Chinese authorities forced the Shanghai Municipal Council to compensate for, the silting was still significant. All factors combined made the introduction of incineration to the concessions “more expensive than contract disposal”. For all of these reasons, the incineration scheme was halted only three years after its launch, and both concessions

504 SMA, U38-4-3007/08. 505 SMA, U1-4-3254; U1-14-2813. 240 eventually accepted the Greater Shanghai government’s standing offer to pay the higher tax to regain permission for waste disposal on Chinese territory.506 In the worsening political climate that followed, when the foreign municipalities lost control over public administration during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the plants remained inactive and no further discussion on them was brought up. A possible explanation for this may be that the temporary Chinese puppet government probably had no interest in the technology due to the fact that the quest for dumping grounds was no longer a subject of inter-municipal dispute, and landfilling was not considered a problem. The puppet-Public Works Bureau (Shanghai Tebieshi Gongwuju 上海特別市工務局) and Public Health Bureau (Weishengju 工務局), like their predecessors, never developed their own incineration scheme. The Greater Shanghai government had originally expressed an interest in the technology around the time when the conflict about waste disposal escalated: in December 1928, the Weishengju asked the Gongwuju for permission to establish a trial incineration plant in a location near the Little South Gate (Xiaonanmen 小南門).507 However, there is no record that this plant had ever been built, and neither is there any indication for any follow-up incineration scheme. During the 1940s, the puppet government briefly considered re- commissioning the already existing plants for their own purposes, but decided against it to avoid expensive repair and maintenance costs.508 The fact that Shanghai introduced incineration in the early 1930s was also acknowledged in Hong Kong. Even against the background of the inter-municipal conflict and the foreign concessions’ dilemma, advocates of incineration technology saw the initiative in Shanghai as a “good example” for Hong Kong. The South China Morning Post especially lauded the choice to purchase a “Balmer” furnace, which had been successfully working in South America and now—in the eyes of the discussants—seemed to achieve good results despite the poor conditions of Shanghai waste. This was regarded as a substantive argument to prove the Hong Kong government’s skepticism wrong and demonstrate that

506 “Each Municipality Puts Blame On Others for Garbage Menace. River Thickens with Refuse,” The China Press, 29 May 1932, n.p.; “Shanghai Building Work,” North China Herald, 15 March, 1933, 414; “Refuse Disposal: Incinerators Abandoned,” North China Herald, 13 January, 1937, 70. 507 SMA, Q215-1-8104. 508 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 1996, 128. 241 incineration would work under Hong Kong conditions as well.509 The Hong Kong government itself, however, did not react upon the events in Shanghai, and did not reconsider incineration in their aftermath.

3.2.3. Landfill Dependence in Hong Kong

REASONS FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF INCINERATION TO HONG KONG, 1950s TO 1960s

As displayed in chapter 3.1, waste-based land reclamation with all of its environmental side effects formed Hong Kong’s main means of waste treatment for over a century from the 1840s to the 1960s. It was a stable and efficient method of waste treatment as long as compostables dominated the local waste composition and negative effects on the local environment were minimal. Waste production did not exceed the amount needed for reclamation too much during that period, which kept surplus waste that had to be treated through other means to a minimum. By the mid-1950s, the British-Hong Kong authorities first became aware that in the long run, Hong Kong’s limited spatial capacities might bear a risk for the success of waste management in the colony. As documented in the minutes of an Urban Council510 meeting of April 30, 1956, a Chinese member of the Council’s Scavenging and Conservancy Select Committee, whose name is transcribed in the protocol as Mr. Fung Ping Fun, expressed to the Committee that in his view, Hong Kong would, one day, run out of dumping space: “As our population keeps on growing, so will the amount of refuse keep pace with the growth, and in time there will be nowhere to dump it.”511 The broader context of his concern was obviously Hong Kong’s refugee crisis, however, during the 1950s, Hong Kong’s waste management system had not yet experienced any major form of visible pressure yet, which makes Mr. Fung’s remark remarkably visionary. His statement allows for the assumption that there might have been even an on-going discussion within the Urban Council on the matter of future waste management, albeit the details of it are not well documented. Indeed, during the second half of

509 “Garbage Problem: Shanghai Sets Example to Hong Kong,” South China Morning Post, 29 October, 1930, 3. 510 The Urban Council was one of Hong Kong’s major municipal administrative institutions between 1935 and 1999. Its subdivision, the Urban Services Department, replaced the former Sanitary Board and was responsible for the organization and supervision of public works, public medical services, and public sanitation. Waste management thus also fell into its responsibility (cf. Lau, The Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 73–75). 511 PRO, HKRS-716-1-11. 242 the 1950s, the Urban Council and its Public Works Department first began to educate themselves about the connection between waste management and environmental sanitation, and specifically about “new developments in modern and economic techniques for disposing of refuse, garbage, and other wastes” according to the advancing technological standards in Europe and Northern America.512 However, as there was no acute necessity to introduce any new waste management technology in a situation where waste-based land reclamation was still successful, the authorities left it at pure knowledge building for the next decade to come. As has been already described, however, several changing parameters began to simultaneously impose pressure on the overall stability of Hong Kong’s infrastructures during the 1960s. Besides the increasing population density and growing waste production, and environmental degradation did not go unnoticed; local elites especially began to identify air pollution—attributed to industrial emissions and flaws in the local traffic system—as a major threat to public health and suggested to find technological solutions: “It is not yet too late to replace the man-made chaos of modern city life with order and create a decent human environment by appropriate and organic application of science and technology,” as an urban planner wrote in the South China Morning Post in March 1966. Another article featured a few years later in the Post described Hong Kong, in quite harsh words, as “a microcosm of the problems of environmental control [… which] can either be a shining light to the rest of the world in which it tackles these problems, or it can turn into a horrifying travesty of the way in which human beings should be living.”513 In reaction to the decline of waste-based reclamation, public opinion, and the emerging necessity to process waste increasingly fast, the Urban Council ultimately decided to introduce an incineration scheme to Hong Kong. The first two plants built were the long-planned plant at Kennedy Town and an additional one at Lai Chi Kok 荔枝角 in western Kowloon, commissioned in 1967 and 1969, respectively. After a running period of almost a decade, this incineration

512 “Environmental Sanitation Seminar Soon,” South China Morning Post, 26 September, 1956, 8. 513 Golger, Otto J., “Deteriorating City: A Damning Indictment of the Way in which Hongkong Is Ignoring A Major Threat to Its Health,” South China Sunday Post, 6 March, 1966, 18; Webster, Michael, “Hongkong Should Show the Way: Saving Our Environment,” South China Morning Post, 26 November, 1971, 2. 243 scheme was extended by another plant in Kwai Chung 葵涌 in northwestern Kowloon next to the Gin Drinkers Bay landfill, commissioned in 1978 landfill, and another nine years later by yet another, smaller plant at Mui Wo 梅窩 on Lantau Island, commissioned in 1987.514 Due to Hong Kong’s limited spatial capacities, all incinerators had to be positioned in relative proximity to villages and other residential areas. All were situated far beyond the outskirts of the city at the time of commission, but given Hong Kong’s demographic development, neighborhoods began to grow towards and around the plants within the matter of a few years, exposing entire new communities to yet another new form of pollution: as a matter of fact, the aim to overcome coastal waste pollution through incineration simply shifted the problem to the aerial sphere, as the new technology soon became the Hong Kong’s number one air polluter. Only two years after the commission of the Kennedy Town plant, residents already described it as a “prime offender” due to its smelly emissions. An Advisory Committee on Air Pollution and a Smoke Abatement Unit, formed by the Legislative Council in 1971 to investigate the problem, found the incinerators to be a major factor of deteriorating air quality, and criticized that they were of “antiquated design, and [did] not incorporate electrostatic precipitators [=particle filters] to reduce the emission of particles”.515 Their judgment implies that the plants at Kennedy Town and Lai Chi Kok were, compared with the technological possibilities of the time, already outdated at the time of construction. This raises questions about the Urban Council’s assessment of long-term future waste management in Hong Kong: did they just want to save costs? Did they underestimate the new system’s capacities? At the time of commission, even the consulted experts expected the Kennedy Town and Lai Chi Kok plants to deliver a solid contribution to Hong Kong’s waste management strategy, but hinted at the possibility of having to extend the incineration scheme in the future. Both plants, however, had a relatively low total capacity of only 540 tons of household waste per day that soon turned out to be insufficient to successfully cope with Hong Kong’s growing industrial waste accumulations. The Kwai Chung incinerator, constructed in reaction to the shrinking capacities of the first two plants, was designed specifically for the

514 Environmental Protection Department, “Appendix 2: Review of Solid Waste Intake at Waste Facilities;” Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong, 52. 515 “Air Pollution,” South China Morning Post, 5 August, 1969, 13; Webster, “Hongkong Should Show the Way,” South China Morning Post, 26 November, 1971, 2. 244 purpose of treating the high moisture content in the local waste (only 26% if it were immediately combustible), and for processing larger amounts of industrial waste: in opposition to the other two plants, it featured a gas cleaning compartment. It was commissioned with some delay because there was literally no space for it at first: the Public Works Department had to wait for land reclamation at Kwai Chung to be completed before being able to start construction. The capacity of the Kwai Chung plant, at 900 tons per day, had almost twice the capacity of the other two plants. Still, in the long run, and even in combination with the aforementioned additional compostation and pulverization plants (both commissioned in 1979, located at Tseung Kwan O 將軍澳 in the East New Territories), the three incinerators could not keep up with the fast growing waste production rate.516

AIR POLLUTION, PUBLIC PROTEST, AND THE ABANDONMENT OF THE INCINERATION SCHEME, 1970s TO 1980s Hong Kong’s incineration efforts reached their peak in 1987 with the commission of the Mui Wo incinerator. Coincidentally, the 1980s were exactly the period when incineration technology began to receive harsh criticism by environmental experts and environmental movements in Europe and Northern America, due to the air pollution it caused. 517 Because environmental legislation and the implementation of environmental law were underdeveloped in Hong Kong, the heavy pollution and the incinerators became a topic of debate there as well. Although it was not a very ‘loud’ debate, its appearance can be traced back in local newspapers in both English and Chinese language between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. Opinions expressed in the South China Morning Post, for example, focused on pointing out the general deficits of long-term planning and efficiency in Hong Kong’s general waste management strategy, contextualizing these problems with the general condition of the local environment. The Urban Council and Public Works Department were accused of failure to provide a comprehensive, long-term scheme to prevent and reduce environmental

516 Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong, 166–168; Wallace, J.A. “Incineration of Refuse in Hong Kong,” 146, 152; Environmental Protection Department, “Appendix 2.” 517 On protest and campaigns against incineration in Western industrialized countries, cf., for example, Furuseth Owen J., and O’Callaghan, Janet, “Community Response to A Municipal Waste Incinerator: NIMBY or neighbor?;” Petts, Judith, “Incineration Risk Perceptions and Public Concern: Experience In the U.K. Improving Risk Communication;” or Walsh, Edward et al., “Backyards, NIMBYs, and Incinerator Sitings: Implications for Social Movement Theory.” 245 deterioration and implement “special waste” management (which refers especially to industrial waste). Critics further pointed out that the running waste management scheme was one-dimensional and deficient in important supportive technologies that had been long introduced in various parts of the Global North, such as high density baling, industrial composting, and recycling. Some even suspected that the Hong Kong government was wantonly postponing investments into waste management in favor of other projects,518 which, with regard to Hong Kong’s economic policy strategy, which has already been discussed in chapter 3.1, was not an unfounded assumption. In general, the tone of the debate—most of which was held in English—was appellative towards the government, sometimes with a resigned undertone, sometimes hopeful, as most correspondents were still convinced that there still remained time to improve the situation. For the Chinese population of Hong Kong, the situation was overall more desperate, as more of its communities were directly exposed to various sources of air pollution. Local newspapers in Chinese language reported much less frequently on the topic than the South China Morning Post but were no less explicit about the Chinese- speaking public’s frustration with the incinerators: various articles from the late 1970s show how residents of communes such as Lai Chi Kok, Mei Foo 美孚, and

Sham Shui Po 深水埗 were “strongly affected by the [Lai Chi Kok plant’s] smelly emissions (shen gan meiqi nanwen 深感霉氣難聞)” and had “endured the smell emitted by the incinerator for ten years now (yi renshou le shinian laji fenhualu sanfa chouqi 已忍受了十年垃圾焚化爐散發臭氣),” now slowly reaching the breaking point. Two thousand protesters on Peng Chau 坪洲 Island, remembering the experience of having a small experimental incinerator installed in their neighborhood for a short period of time during the 1960s, took to the streets to protest against the re-erection of an incinerator on Peng Chau in September 1979. All affected communities demanded the abolishment of incineration technology, or, at least, its removal to more remote areas, and advocated for the extension of the landfill scheme instead. With Hong Kong’s overall environmental condition in mind, they argued: “despite the fact that waste transport [to the landfills] causes partial environmental pollution as well,

518 Hall, L., “Govt’s Moves to Clean the Environment,” South China Morning Post, 12 October, 1974, 11; “Solid Waste Poses Problems, South China Morning Post, 25 March, 1976, 7; Dubois, J. W., “There’ll Be No Clean Beaches or Bays Left: Unless Precautions Are Taken…,” South China Morning Post, 19 August, 1975, 10. 246 compared with the incinerator, its circumstances are much better (雖然在運送垃圾的過程中亦都會造成部分的環境污染，但相對於焚化爐來說，情況會較好

些).”519 Despite some improvements on the older incinerators—higher chimneys and particle filters were installed in the late 1970s—, the Hong Kong government remained unable to appease the frustrated communities. In 1980, A.W. Olivier, Chief Electrical and Mechanical Engineer at the Public Works Department, stated in the South China Morning Post in December 1980 that the government was willing to take local residents’ well-being into account but pointed out that at the time the colonial government commissioned the incinerators, Lai Chi Kok and its surrounding areas had been “practically rural”, and no harm to any neighborhood could have been foreseen. 520 By the late 1980s, the combination of public resentment—even though it never turned into real activism—, environmental experts’ on-going concern about the future of Hong Kong’s natural resources, and new estimates on future waste production became overwhelming: the year 1989 saw 13,000 tons of municipal solid waste generated every day, a figure that was expected to rise up to 18,000 tons by 2001. The Public Works Department ultimately decided to abolish the incineration scheme altogether and practice landfilling exclusively—consequently, until 1994, all four incinerators were decommissioned one by one. Admitting that landfilling, too, would continue to have “pollution effects”, it still seemed to offer greater capacities and be more tolerable than incineration.521

519 “Lizhijiao jumin yi renshoule shinian laji fenhualu sanfa chouqi... dangju zuo xuanbu jia gao yancong... jiu ge yue gongcheng wancheng hou cai hui gaishan 荔枝角居民已忍受了十年垃圾焚化爐散發臭氣當局昨宣佈加高煙囪九個月工程完成後才會有改善,” Da gong bao 大公報, 23 August, 1977, 5; “Meifu zixunhui yu fang zhong zai zhichu laji meiqi yingxiang jumin… fenhualu ying qian wang jiaoqu 美孚諮詢會與坊眾在指出垃圾霉氣影響居民焚化爐應遷往郊區,” Gongshang wanbao 工商晚報, 6 September, 1979, 2.; “Pingzhou nanwan erqian jumin fandui dangju zai qu nei chongjianlaji fenhualu 坪洲南灣二千居民反對在區內重建垃圾焚化爐,” Gongshang wanbao 工商晚報, 9 September, 1979, 4; “Laji fenhualu daozhi huanjing wuran... zhengfu nicai qita fangfa chuli richang suo shou liesa 垃圾焚化爐導致環境污染政府擬採其他方法處理日常所收獵鍔,” Huaqiao ribao 華僑日報, 10 May, 1985, 6; “Ni quxiao fenhualu cai liesa duitianfa 擬取消焚化炉採獵鍔堆填法,” Huaqiao ribao 華僑日報, 12 April, 1986, 10. 520 Olivier, A.W., “Taking Heat Off the Incinerator,” South China Morning Post, 2 December, 1980, 20. 521 “Waste Disposal Plans Rejected,” South China Sunday Morning Post, 5 March, 1989, 3. 247 3.3. Catering to National Recycling: Waste Management Technologies in Revolutionary Shanghai and Chengdu

While chapter 4 will discuss recycling under socialism in further detail, the key point of this section is that any waste disposal is undesirable before the background of a repurpose-all ideology. It is therefore not surprising that methods of ultimate disposal, such as landfilling, played a subordinate role in Revolutionary China as the main goal was to keep as much waste as possible circulating between different industries (recyclables) as well as between cities and the countryside (fertilizer). Consequently, it should not come as a surprise that the topic of landfilling, as a means of last resort for the remaining materials that were ultimately non-recyclable, is underrepresented in both the investigated archival materials and newspapers of the Mao era. The fact that that even the Shanghai and Chengdu huanjing weisheng zhi—all their limitations as ‘sources’ of historical information considered—also have very little to say about landfilling during the Revolutionary era, while going into great detail regarding other aspects of waste management, is another indicator for a very limited scope of existing sources on the topic. As can be expected, the availability of information is most limited for the period of the Cultural Revolution, the general impairment of waste management efficiency during which has already been addressed in chapter 2.3.

3.3.1. Landfilling, The ‘Three Wastes Campaign’, and Industrial Waste Pollution

Written sources on 1950s to mid-1970s landfill management, such as information featured in municipal archives and historical newspapers, are scarce. Further information might be acquired through the uncovering of additional sources, for example, in rural archives and through interviews with time witnesses. However, such projects will have to be the subject of future studies to come. The reason why so few sources on the topic are held at the municipal archives of Shanghai and Chengdu or in local newspapers examined can be speculatively explained by a recombination of some previously discussed developments during the Mao era. The dominance of big societal transformations and campaigns over temporarily ‘less important’ administrative agendas at the local level, the decline of central state influence on local administration, and the more informal, experimental way of approaching local administration, which made it overall less bureaucratic. Another reason may also play a role, namely the previously indicated absence of 248 “waste” as a category of useless, disposable materials in the communist national recycling ideology. Modeled after the Soviet example, a network of state- organized waste collection and processing centers was set up throughout the young People’s Republic soon after its foundation. Its goal was to help save resources and enhance industrial production by feeding all waste material of any remaining value either into the developing industry (as raw material) or the countryside (as fertilizer). This system, first launched in the context of a huge campaign entitled “Waste into Treasures” (“Bian fei wei bao” yundong “变废为宝”运动) in 1956, was pursued throughout the entire Mao period and mobilized the whole nation to treat all waste as valuables, collect it, and sell it to the government. Campaign activities, which were usually refreshed once per year during the time of traditional spring cleaning, fulfilled several other purposes besides scrap collection, in that they also mobilized people to help clean up their cities, remove waste from the streets, purify their drinking water, and eliminate pests. Most importantly, they educated the people that all of these goals mattered.522 An article of 1960 entitled “Tianxia wu feiwu 天下无废物 (There is no Waste on Earth)”, published in the bi-monthly Shanghai journal Jiefang 解放 (Liberation), is only one of countless examples of journalism expressing the recycling spirit of the time. It proclaims that the use of waste was crucial for the establishment of socialism, and that the choice to simply not regard waste as “waste” would enable society to turn “useless into useful, single-use items into reusable items, and items of limited use into very useful items (shi wu yong bian you yong, yi yong bian duo yong, xiao yong bian da yong 使无用变有用，一用变多用，小用变大用)”.523 The article concludes that “waste” does not exist in socialism, an assumption which distinctly differentiates it from the capitalist system. Used things would simply change their status of value; everything could be put to a new use through the means of science, especially chemistry and metallurgy, and the scope of success in this attempt were merely a question of a society’s scope of imagination. Since everybody produces waste, the entire society was basically holding instant means of production (Produktionsmittel)—in

522 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 78. 523 Jin Zhaowen 金兆文, “Tianxia wu feiwu 天下无废物 [There is no Waste on Earth], “Jiefang” banyuekan “解放”半月刊 11 (1960): 22–25 (copy held at SMA in the file A25-1-47- 22). 249 a Marxian sense—at all times in the form of their own waste, which, from the viewpoint of socialist economic philosophy, was to be regarded as hugely empowering and would, ultimately, not only contribute to preventing huge amounts of resources from going to waste but also to a gradual “liberation of the mind (sixiang shang de jiefang 思想上的解放)”.524 Certainly, the most relevant question in this context is about the relation between the scope of recycling and disposal. Although it is, based on the resources available to this author at this time, impossible to reconstruct precise figures, it is certain that the recycling chain had serious shortcomings with regard to many industrial wastes: according to an investigation conducted by Shanghai’s Gongye ju 工业局 in 1963, various local companies repeatedly failed at properly neutralizing (zhonghe 中和) toxins, diluting (xishi 稀释) chemical discharges, and/or “storing up dirt” (chu chen 储尘) in the process of recycling.525 Elevated toxin levels in the production residues rendered some waste products unsuitable for repurposing; some produced poisonous emissions that surpassed the margins provided by law by three times. The investigation report further stated that the treatment of waste gas (feiqi 废气) and dust emissions (huichen 灰尘) was lacking standardized management methods, which often resulted in no treatment at all. According to the report, it had previously “not been understood (meiyou renshi dao 没有认识倒)” that “industrial wastewater, waste gas, and fine dust management and treatment were [actually] part of industrial management (feishui, feiqi, huichen de chuli shi gongye guanli neirong zhi yi 废水、废气、灰尘的管理处理是工业管理内容之一)”. Consequently, most companies, even the largest ones, were lacking a department or even a single person in charge of industrial emissions and discharge, not even to speak of the technology that was necessary to neutralize toxins.526 Although the report does not directly address it, the described situation implies that Revolutionary Shanghai obviously must have been facing problems with untreated toxic wastes, which, in the absence of technologically advanced waste treatment facilities, were unsuitable for the recycling chain and had to go to landfill.

524 Ibid. 525 SMA, B163-2-1457. 526 Ibid. 250 The Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi confirms that landfilling—also in the form of reclamation—was the major method of waste disposal for all materials that failed in the recycling chain. The amounts that accumulated after recyclables had been picked out cannot have been small as Shanghai continued to fill up creeks and swampy spots with waste, after which there was still plenty of waste left to be sent to landfill.527 Importantly, the general landfill technique was open dumping, either with only a simple soil cover or sometimes with additional cotton and stone (the latter was practiced especially near densely populated areas where bad smells had to be avoided). Besides fly eradication, not much else was done. The main dumping site of the Mao era was still the one at Sanlintang, an area so large that it eventually stayed in use until the 1990s. Interestingly—if the following anecdote featured in the Weishengzhi is to be believed since the original source of information is not revealed—, locals had successfully been growing trees and vegetables on the dump since 1951 as the Shirenwei had ordered to “improve its environmental hygiene”. Allegedly, a soviet delegation visited the dump the same year and called it “a miracle” (qiji 奇迹)—which, from today’s perspective, and with the knowledge that all kinds of different waste, including the untreaded toxic ones, were discarded of in the same locations, would have been a rather questionable miracle indeed.528 After all, the majority of discarded material was a combination of industrial and construction waste, which, by 1973, had reached 4,000 tons daily that were disposed of at Sanlintang as opposed to 2,400 tons of household waste and another 2,000 tons of industrial and construction waste that directly entered the recycling chain.529 As one of few studies that have ever systematically investigated the problem of industrial waste disposal in Revolutionary China, a doctoral dissertation submitted by Luyuan Li to Northwestern University in 2003 describes that during and a few years beyond the first decade of the People’s Republic, not only the local but even the central government had had doubts that proper waste disposal in the industrial sector was even important due to incomplete knowledge. As waste pollution began to emerge, the central government slowly began to question whether

527 Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi, 128; SMA, B11-2-17-18. 528 Cf. ibid., 126. 529 SMA, B256-3-6-66. Construction waste remains a major factor in waste composition in Mainland China until today, making up for 350 million tons or 30 to 40% of the country’s entire waste production (cf. Kobi, Madlen, “Chinesische Wege des Bauschutts—Sozialanthropologische Perspektiven auf das Recycling von Baumaterialien und die Materialität der Stadt,” 175). 251 environmental sanitation should not actually be given priority over the fulfillment of production plans. Waste minimization, however, would have required taking into account a wider range of interrelated problems and concerns that were complex to take on. The central government also believed that the interrelatedness of long-term economic development and the condition of the natural environment was to be regarded as a holistic continuum that would regulate itself on the long run, thus no further intervention took place at the local level,530 with the exception of a nationwide campaign to ease the environmental side effects of toxic waste disposal in the resolute ambition to retrieve even pollutants as recyclables: the “Three Wastes campaign (San fei yundong 三废运动, referring to waste liquids, waste gas, and industrial scraps)” was launched during the first years of the cultural revolution: in 1968, a pilot project in Shanghai first took on a major river dredging project that mobilized 9,000 people to remove 403,600 tons of contaminated sludge from local riverbeds within only a hundred days. During the same year, locals were also mobilized to recover even more industrial waste than had ever been collected locally before: among these materials were “several hundred tons of dye stuff, 8,000 tons of oils and thousands of tons of chemicals […]” that would otherwise have gone to landfill: “From the wastes 10,000 tons of metal were extracted and 200,000 tons of cement were made. The paper, electro- plating and leather industry wastes also yielded hundreds of thousands of tons of fertilizers and the processed waste.” Even water was recycled to irrigate 6,650 acres of local farmland.531 Of course, what the reports do not mention is that the highly toxic rest still had to be sent to landfill. After its initial launch, the campaign got undermined by the course of events during the Cultural Revolution but was relaunched with even more vigorous organization and mass mobilization in the early 1970s when it became clear that waste pollution, especially from industrial sources, had seriously affected the environment. Environmental degradation had reached such a degree that Zhou Enlai himself, who had originally coined the term “san fei”, ordered to “put pollution first and [economic] governance second (xian wuran, hou zhili 先污染后治理)”, personally targeting the widespread revolutionary conviction that the socialist system were by definition “unable to produce pollution (shehuizhuyi

530 Li, Luyuan, “Social Campaigns and Media Flows In China: Five Case Histories of Environmental Campaigns, 1949–2000,” 29. 531 Ibid., 30. 252 zhidu bu keneng chansheng wuran 社会主义制度不可能产生污染)” due to its ‘perfectly exhaustive’ use of resources and that “everybody who claimed that there was pollution or an environmental hazard were discrediting socialism (shei shuo you wuran, you gonghai, shei jiu shi gei shehuizhuyi mohei 谁说有污染、有公害，谁就是给社会主义抹黑).532 As concerns the central government, Li points out that it was not really in denial of the environmental consequences of poorly managed waste disposal. Still, in its eyes, whether or not residual materials had to end up as useless waste was a dialectical question—a problem of proper planning and creativity to repurpose residuals, not a problem of production techniques, ineffective regulations, or an overambitious ideology.533 As Li argues, this continued denial, paired with the dominant conviction that environmental problems of any kind could be overcome by conquest in a prolonged “war against nature”, led not only to a failure to properly control waste disposal but also, eventually, to the failure of the Three Wastes campaign itself; ignorant of the fact that there would always be toxic, non-recyclable residuals under the existing production methods, the central government refused to look at industrialization and environmental damage as one bigger picture. Major mistakes were made, such as insufficient scientific research, insufficient mobilization of grassroots knowledge held by those workers who were most familiar with actual production processes, failure to accept constructive suggestions, and one-way (top-down) decision-making.534 Certainly, many of these problems emerged foremost because Shanghai was already heavily industrialized. As far as could be reconstructed on the basis of the research conducted for this thesis, Chengdu, far less industrially developed, did not experience the same degree of waste pollution. According to the Chengdu huanjing weishengzhi, a lot of household waste was used as fuel during the postwar years, but when most households switched to coal during the 1950s, that waste was again used in fertilizer production and land reclamation. In both cases, a lot of waste was ‘saved’ from going to landfill. During the Great Leap Forward, local recycling was allegedly so effective that even less was left behind.535 Of course, such statements, especially if they appear in subsequently compiled

532 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 78. 533 Li, “Social Campaigns and Media Flows In China,” 30–31. 534 Ibid.; 33–36. 535 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi, 41–42. 253 volumens published by the central government, such as the Weishengzhi, have to be treated with caution as they might contain or reproduce propaganda. However, the statistical overview in chapter 2.1 has already provided insights into Chengdu’s waste production in proportion to local population increase during this time, and the waste production rate was indeed very low during this period. Although this situation is likely to have minimized Chengdu’s risk of soil pollution during the revolutionary core phases, river dumping, a problem that had been impossible to resolve during the Republican period, probably posed on- going problems at least during the initial years of the People’s Republic. Correspondences from the year 1948 between the municipal government, its River Committee (Daohehui 导河会), and the Provincial Police Department reveal that large-scale dumping of residential waste effectively turned the river into a kind of ‘landfill replacement’, the process of which caused substantial silting. With regard to the fact that Chengdu had one major river course that connected to the surrounding countryside in only three locations, free water flow throughout the entire river was crucial for any in- and outbound water navigation as well as for the supply of the nearby hydropower station. Since nearby-living residents were declared responsible for the river dumping, the municipal government charged them with the obligation to hire a dredging service at their own costs.536 As concerns Revolutionary Chengdu, based upon the limited information available, problems with waste disposal were minor in comparison with Shanghai’s. Again, the city’s moderate size plays a role here as well as its aforementioned status as a trade and transport hub during the Revolutionary period—in opposition to Shanghai’s function as a center for the heavy industry. Both are factors that make Chengdu much less likely to have experienced high rates of industrial waste pollution before the late 1970s. As the Chengdu huanjing weishengzhi states, it was not before then that waste production did noticeably speed up in the context of late twentieth-century industrialization and accelerated development.537 After Mao Zedong’s death, the Three Wastes campaign was revived on a nation-wide scale in a new and more progressive, more strongly legislation-based manner that openly renounced Maoist ideology. Besides identifying the recycling

536 CMA, 民国 0002-001-11-020; 民国 0002-001-11-021; 民国 0002-001-14-054. 537 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi, 42–43. 254 of the “three wastes” as one of the core targets of the Patriotic Health campaign, thus effectively merging both campaigns, the waste categories concerned were extended to normal household waste, pesticide residues, radioactive wastes, and noise control (for the first time recognized as another form of pollution). As of 1979, as a means to force industries into co-operation through the application of economic pressure, all companies that refused to include environmentally protective measures into their production processes were excluded from being integrated into next year’s plan.538 The progressive character of new legislative initiatives has already been discussed in chapter 1.3. So has also the adverse effect of China’s insufficiently regulated economic development of the late twentieth century, the economic benefits of which eventually overpowered initial attempts towards environmentally protective precautions. As Wang explains, the new regulations on waste disposal were perceived as economically disabling and profit-endangering at factory level, especially with regard to the previous convenience of the ubiquitous open dumping. Many companies agreed to a compromise, readily paying regular emission fees rather than to invest much higher sums into an improved management of their toxic wastes. It is true that the state-owned enterprises that collected such fees from their subsidiary companies could re-invest them into environmentally protective measures at the regional or provincial level. However, such measures did not necessarily include or even have to do with improved waste management.539 Thus, the 1970s and 1980s remained two decades of continued open dumping, all the while landfill pressure was on the rise, partly because China’s urban incineration scheme was still underdeveloped (see also the following sections) but also because the traditional fertilizer system was declining rapidly: in the course of decollectivization during the late 1970s and the 1980s, more and more agricultural units around Shanghai joined the new “contract responsibility system” (lianchan chengbao zerenzhi 联产承包责任制, sometimes also translated “household responsibility system” with reference to family-based agricultural production units), in which each producer was remunerated according to his or her own individual production output instead of with a lump sum. Gradually driven into a real market competition with one another, farmers became less and less interested in waste fermentation as organic

538 Wang, “Cong ‘sanfei’ liyong dao wuran zhili,” 79–80. 539 Ibid., 81. 255 fertilizers were not as effective as their chemical counterparts. Eventually, they refused urban waste deliveries altogether; some villages erected landfills instead in order to accommodate Shanghai waste. In Chengdu, the situation was similar: as more and more peasants joined the contract system, the labor-intensive process of waste fermentation became increasingly unattractive. As uncollected waste began to pile up in the city, the local Patriotic Health Committee (Aiguo weisheng weiyuanhui 爱国卫生委员会 or Aiweihui 爱卫会) arranged for it to be dumped in different locations in the countryside while larger landfill sites and a comprehensive waste treatment facility (including an incinerator) were still under construction. In Shanghai, accelerating urban development put additional pressure on waste management: even Pudong, the former ‘home’ of waste disposal during all prior decades, was now crowding up. Not only did surplus household waste accumulate there but also an additional daily 50,000 tons of industrial and construction waste from Shanghai’s urban development process, for which the city had no solution. Pudong already had no more ponds or creeks to fill in, and the old reclamation system had to be given up.540 With all waste now trapped in the cities, the end of the use of waste in China’s traditional fertilizer system thus marked the beginning of a new era of landfilling in urban China, in which more respect had to be paid to the environmental consequences of uncontrolled landfilling. In contrast to Hong Kong, new strategies seem to have envisioned the development of future mass waste accumulations, in the course of which large- scale sanitary landfilling was ultimately introduced. Newly constructed landfill sites were significantly more engineered than those that been constructed earlier, even if still not state-of the-art from a global perspective. Shanghai’s new Laogang landfill (Laogang tianmaichang 老港填埋场), for example, commissioned in 1990 in Pudong Xinqu and designed to accept decades of municipal waste, was the first local facility to apply sealing layers, compress mechanically waste before disposal, and filter and chemically treat leachate before discharging it into the sea.541

540 SMA, B1-9-184-101. 541 Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi, 129; Chengu shi zhi—huanjing weishengzhi, 42–43. 256 3.3.2. Machine-based Waste Management during the Mao Era

INCINERATION TECHNOLOGIES OF THE 1950s TO 1990s

During the second half of the twentieth century, the mechanization and industrialization of Shanghai’s and Chengdu’s waste management systems proceeded only at slow pace. Especially in the case of Shanghai, it may come as a surprise that incineration was not readopted after the communists’ take of power; after all, the technical equipment was already there. In the early 1950s the communist municipal government briefly expressed an interest in both plants, but since they had not been running for almost two decades and would have had to be completely overhauled, repair costs were deemed disproportional to the expected benefit.542 The possibility to incinerate waste thus shifted entirely out of focus, and Shanghai simply continued to practice landfilling. The Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi 上海环境卫生志 narrates in historical retrospective:

解放后，垃圾的堆放或填埋在相当长的时间内作为主要处理方式。[...] 50 年代至 70 年代，上海市区的生活垃圾主要运往农村，一般由农民自行堆放发酵后，用作农肥。80 年代始，上海市区的生活垃圾主要堆放在江苏、浙江和上海郊县垃圾滩地。 After liberation, landfilling or land reclamation became the main method of waste treatment over a fairly long period of time. From the 1950s to the 1970s, household waste from the urban districts of Shanghai was mainly transported to the countryside. Generally it was used as fertilizer after the peasants had accumulated it for fermentation. As of the 1980s, household waste from Shanghai’s urban districts was mainly disposed of in Jiangsu province, Zhejiang province and on suburban laji tandi (waste beaches).543

The fact that Shanghai no longer faced any lack of dumping space and that the communist recycling scheme now dominated the waste regime probably contributed to the decision against incineration. It is also likely that it was no longer regarded as a feasible means of waste treatment because of its ‘destructive’ properties, while the socialist recycling ideology required all raw materials, including waste, to be preserved. Even after a thorough investigation of the Shanghai Municipal Archives’ holdings, the author has not been able to find evidence that large-scale incineration played any role at all in Shanghai during the 1950s to 1990s, even in the context of industrial waste management. February 1970 marks the first time since the 1930s that incineration is explicitly mentioned again in an archival document: the mentioning concerns the basic proposal to

542 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 127–128. 543 Ibid., 126. 257 consider incineration in the context of radioactive waste management, but the proposal was never followed up upon (perhaps because fire is not an effective countermeasure against radiation).544 The fact that Shanghai had no incineration scheme during these decades apparently never raised any bigger problems as the landfill scheme could cope with the increase in waste production of the time. In the 1990s, however, this changed. The Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi (published in 1996) explicitly mentions that the 1990s marked a watershed in Shanghai waste production, and that it was now time to reintroduce incineration: 90 年代，上海经济发展，人民生活水平提高，垃圾构成发生变化，对上海的垃圾焚烧处理已列入市府领导仪事日程，30 年代中期终止的垃圾焚烧处理，已重新立项建设。 As of the 1990s, Shanghai’s economy has developed, people’s living standards have been rising, and waste composition has changed. Waste incineration for Shanghai is already on the municipal government leaders’ agenda. The incineration scheme that was terminated in the mid-1930s is now again on the list of new construction projects.545

Similar to Shanghai, landfilling also continued to dominate Chengdu’s local waste management scheme throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is evidence that occasional waste burning had been common throughout the Republican era, but it took place in open spaces and required no advanced technical equipment. The installation of an incinerator was, however, briefly considered in 1946 in reaction to the city’s constantly rising waste production and the increasing water pollution that was attributed to uncontrolled waste dumping. Incineration was as part of a broader plan to update Chengdu’s general waste management scheme with the intention to introduce a more systematic and comprehensive approach. The plan included the establishment of several new landfills in the suburbs where there previously existed none, the distribution of waste bins to suburban residential areas, an increased supervision of daily waste collection and food markets (the wastes of the latter being perceived as major contributors to water pollution) by the police, and the installation of a large incinerator, which, eventually, was never built.546 Landfilling and reclamation remained Chengdu’s main method of waste disposal until the end of the 1980s, taking in about 46% percent of the total city’s waste production while almost all

544 SMA, B109-4-156-65. 545 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 126. 546 SPA, 民 113-01-0496. 258 the rest was used for fertilizer production and never disposed of.547 Nevertheless, there was a small fraction that was burned in very simple facilities: in the early 1960s, a small experimental incinerator was installed on a dumping ground in the south of the city. It was a “brick-made, simple furnace” (zhuanqi jianyi lu 砖砌简易炉) and could only burn 50 kg of waste at a time. Even assuming that it probably circled through multiple of loads each day, this number accounts for a very small capacity—for comparison, the Shanghai International Settlement alone burned 97.5 tons of waste in a single day already in the 1930s. Coal ashes had to be mixed in when the furnace was fed to support quick combustion. In general, however, coal ashes were much more valuable if put to a use in local fertilizer production, where they acted as a mineral component. It was therefore not favorable to ‘waste’ them in incineration.548 During the 1960s and 1970s, the Chengdu Weishengju and Shiqingguansuo 市清管所 (City Cleaning Administration Office) also burned medical waste in an “on and off” manner (shi duan shi xu 时断时续) in a similar furnace, until the provincial government finally introduced “a better facility” (jiao hao de shebei 较好的设备) for this purpose in the late 1970s. The 1980s, eventually, saw a more thorough development of the Chengdu incineration scheme when the new Shihuanweichu 市环卫处 (City Bureau for Environmental Hygiene) first took on responsibility for biosafety (wuhaihua 无害化), or the reduction of germs, vermin, and toxins in the waste.549 Thereafter, both medical wastes and household wastes were sorted (fenlei 分类) for the first time—the separation categories for household waste included animal parts, plant matter (which accounted for over two thirds of the total volume), plastics, paper, cloth, building debris, coal ashes, glass, and metal—and then burned separately. Another round of inspection for harmful bacteria followed this procedure. It is a key feature of Chengdu’s late twentieth century incineration scheme in that it was aimed at improving public health through purification or neutralization of the waste, as opposed to ‘getting rid’ of waste through the means of incineration.550

547 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 30. 548 Ibid., 28, 45. 549 On the establishment of standards for environmental hygiene including the correspondent foundation of administrative units, see chapter 1.3. 550 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 45–46. 259 Between the 1950s and 1980s, Chengdu explicitly had “no uniformly arranged management or monitoring” (meiyou tongyi anpai guanli he lance 没有统一安排管理和蓝测) for the incineration of “special” (tezhong 特种, here: industrial) waste. The Shiqingguansuo did not manage this category of waste itself but left it to the individual responsibility of the danwei that produced it. It can therefore be assumed that a substantial part of Chengdu’s daily waste accumulation was never dealt with on municipal level, but treated in manifold ways in single production units. It was not before 1990 that the municipality envisioned a unified incineration scheme for industrial waste under its own supervision. The new incineration plant, which the Shihuanweichu built in 1991, could burn three tons of industrial waste per hour. This figure gives an impression of the increase of daily waste accumulations that had developed in industrializing Chengdu by the end of the twentieth century (see the Addendum for a detailed display of waste production in Chengdu and comparative figures throughout the twentieth century). It also demonstrates that a high-tech facility was needed to manage them, and that the previously practiced waste management system was severely outdated.551 While it was impossible to trace back specific waste treatment techniques to the danwei and company level in the context of this thesis, future research should bring forth further information on the role that waste played in local production chains, as well as on the perception of waste as rooted in local culture and zeitgeist during the second half of the twentieth century.

MECHANIZED FERTILIZER PRODUCTION As concerns the mass production of fertilizer, no mechanized facilities were installed in Shanghai between the 1950s and 1970s to support the production process, although fertilizer production dominated the local waste management scheme. In 1980, however, the Shanghai municipality invested into a wuhaihua chulichang 无害化处理场 (best translated as “biosafety treatment facility”), which was installed in Anting 安亭 village in Jiading 嘉定 county near Shanghai. It was a waste fermentation plant that operated with high temperatures to neutralize germs and quickly became the largest supplier of fertilizer in the whole area. Besides a major share of household waste, it also treated some industrial sludges (wuni 污泥) and wastewater (wushui 污水) in an attached unit for the

551 Ibid., 45. 260 treatment of liquids, which also processed the waste liquids that were extracted during the fermentation process itself. Prior to fermentation, the waste matter was also filtered for scrap metal. Despite its benefits, the plant was expensive in maintenance, and it was only able to process a tiny fraction (1.2%) of Shanghai’s total waste production. It operated for a little over a decade, but was decommissioned in 1994 for economic reasons.552 Another reason must have been the aforementioned decline of the waste-to-fertilizer scheme. People also began to throw away more and recycled less; during the 1980s, a steep increase in waste production was observed. According to the Shanghai huanjing weishengzhi, it was partly linked to a general decrease in the productivity of the feipin gongsi 废品公司 (waste companies), which had been appointed by the supply and marketing cooperatives (gongxiao hezuoshe 供销合作社) to support the national recycling trade. As the era of communist national recycling slowly came to an end, less and less waste was repurposed. Instead, it ended up in people’s household bins and in daily waste collection, increasing the overall volume of matter sent to landfill. The new waste mixture contained a much higher content of inorganic matter that could not be composted and thus no longer meet the countryside’s requirements for fertilizer production, which further accelerated the decline of the traditional fertilizer system. As more and more fertilizer companies began to refuse Shanghai waste due to its composition, most of it was directly sent to landfill without any further pre-selection.553 Chengdu established a fertilizer industry already before the socialist phase. As the usability of animal bones in fertilizer production was well known and recognized, a local fertilizer factory built during the 1940s processed a daily average of one ton of animal bones—mainly from birds—, which apparently was such a large-scale undertaking that the regional peasants had difficulties delivering the demanded amounts.554 Aside from the application of waste from farms and the food industry, household waste played an important role in fertilizer production in Chengdu as well. As of the 1950s, a substantial part of pellet fertilizer (kelifei 颗粒肥), which was widely used in Sichuan province, was produced in Chengdu’s difang guoying feiliaochang 地方国营肥料厂 (local

552 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 128. 553 Ibid., 129. 554 SPA, 民 148-01-1040. 261 state-owned fertilizer plant). The pellets contained a high percentage of household waste that had been pre-dried and sieved to filter out any impurities and inorganic substances. During the production process it was mixed with solid night soil and human urine at a ratio of 20:1:5 with added fertilizing chemicals, and was stored in piles of 25 tons each for a fermentation period of 60 days in open daylight. The plant produced a yearly average of 3,000 tons of pellet fertilizer (which equals about 8.2 tons per day) and delivered its product to 35 counties and administrative districts in Sichuan province. The quality of the fertilizer was—allegedly—so remarkable that Deng Xiaoping himself—who served as the Party’s Secretary General at that time—personally visited the plant in 1956 to inspect the techniques used there, and recommended it as a model institution.555

555 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 41–42. 262 4. Turning Waste into Treasures: Twentieth-century Circular Economies

In contrast to last chapter’s focus on waste pollution, this chapter takes a closer look at sustainability in twentieth-century Chinese waste management and especially explores some of the inner mechanisms behind the development of long-living, formal as well as informal systems of recycling. The goal of this chapter is to critically assess the ‘green’ potential of these systems as opposed to the environmentally damaging consequences of the waste management described in the previous chapter: in what sense did ‘sustainability thinking’ play a role in twentieth-century Chinese urban societies’ relationship with waste? How profoundly was knowledge about sustainable resource utilization rooted in urban societies and how was it distributed? How sustainable could twentieth-century Chinese waste management get? This chapter will focus on different approaches to recycling as the form of waste management with the most features of and potential for sustainability the Late Qing and post-communist Reform periods, although the actual degree of sustainability certainly had its limits. The topic of recycling and its special trait as a long-term characteristic of Chinese economic and social life throughout the entire twentieth century is by no means new to historical research on China. In fact, it is one of few topics related to Chinese waste management that have in the past been placed into different broader historical contexts by several historians of China, to name especially the work by Frank Dikötter and Joshua Goldstein as well as Stefan Landsberger’s recent publication. 556 These studies focus especially on the ways recycling practices can be used as a lens through which to better understand Chinese material culture. They also stress the longevity of certain historical recycling structures and the ways in which its leading actors have preserved their agency until the present day. As concerns the inner mechanisms of recycling practices and the transmission of recycling knowledge, however, large knowledge gaps remain. In line with the argumentation of previous studies, the author of this thesis believes that recycling practices throughout the twentieth century should be regarded as a historical continuum. However, this continuum can only be

556 Dikötter, Frank, Things Modern: Material Culture and Everyday Life in China; Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday;” Landsberger, Beijing Garbage. 263 sufficiently understood if the mechanisms behind recycling knowledge transfer is explained in more detail than previous studies have offered. While the general assessment of such knowledge is a vast topic that could easily fill an entire full- length study of its own, this chapter provides a basis for future research by taking close-up looks at specific recycling mechanisms throughout most of the twentieth century and how they translated into transferable knowledge. Overall, this chapter is less place-specific than the previous chapters. This is because the historical structures it explores are more universal and less characteristic of particular localities. Place-specific examples, however, are used wherever they are especially illustrative of more general, super-regional structures. This chapter will also show that certain recycling structures were so common and characteristic of Chinese material and economic culture that they extended even to Hong Kong despite the very different political and economic background that predominated there. For methodological reasons, this chapter will leave some questions unanswered. As the background material of this thesis is a combination of written sources mainly from municipal archives and the historical urban press, this methodological approach reaches certain limits in the availability of information specific to this context. If extended into a larger study, this topic would require, for example, an assessment of rural archives to trace back rural and cross-regional recycling markets, as well as additional approaches such as oral history to complement the methodology used in this study. Important and very different aspects of the topic, such as the ways to transmit practical recycling knowledge between fellow citizens, colleagues, families, and generations cross-regionally (especially in the countryside) or whether national recycling during the communist phase actually generated some kind of ‘sustainability and recycling mindset’ among the average population require complex investigations and a wide range of source materials to draw from. The assessment of such sources, however, would be an elaborate research project of its own and falls far beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, this chapter will add depth to previous discussions and bring in new dimensions of analysis that are worthwhile to explore further in the future.

264 4.1. Long-term Informal Recycling Structures

The first scholar to have stressed the historical significance of the informal recycling sector for Chinese material culture since the late nineteenth century is Madeleine Yue Dong who identifies Republican Beijing’s Tianqiao 天桥 district as not only an entertainment quarter where people gathered for shopping, food, and pleasure but also as a recycling center that hosted cheap second hand artifacts next to antiquities, counterfeit items, trash, and black market goods.557 She also finds that this place seemed like it had completely fallen out of time; while the rest of Beijing was rapidly transforming during the 1910s to 1940s to keep up with what was identified as the new “modern future” by the urban elites, this place traded goods from different historical periods, not following any trends or fashion with them. What is important about Dong’s observations is that those old items were not simply resold in their original state and shape. To second-hand vendors of the Republican era (and earlier), recycling meant to apply creative imagination and manual work to old items, to not only give them a new life but often also an entirely new function. The value of those items lay not, like the value of antiquities, in the duration of their previous life cycle(s) but in the way creative agency had been applied to them. After being reworked, items could travel around the city multiple times and in multiple forms without losing functionality.558 Frank Dikötter further explores the idea that recycled (or, in today’s language: ‘upcycled’) goods have an inherent relationship with time. However, he embeds the circulation of used goods into a broader discussion on the transformation of the Chinese society’s relation to ‘modern’ versus ‘antiquated’ material items during the jindai period. Unlike Dong, who attributes a level of quality and transformative power to the creative recycling process that goes beyond mere handcrafting and gives recycling items the inner ability to ‘transcend time’—in fact, she indirectly describes recycling almost as an art form—, Dikötter stresses the usually very profane backgrounds for the necessity to recycle and emphasizes that the primary function of Chinese local thrift cultures was not about creative or artistic expression or the transcendence of old versus new. Although the reworked artifacts were sometimes invented by very creative and artistic minds, they catered

557 Dong, Madeleine Yue, “Juggling Bits: Tianqiao as Republican Beijing’s Recycling Center,” 303–304. 558 Ibid., 338–340. 265 to very fundamental, simple material needs. The urban poor—not only in Beijing but anywhere in China—depended on these markets to get their hands on utensils that they would otherwise be unable to afford. Dikötter states: In a country where goods were scarce but people plentiful, few things remained outside the realm of exchange. Not only would families roam the treeless hills of north China in search of a few twigs or shrubs, but everything was constantly recycled in a culture of thrift and poverty. […] even the smallest object had a price in a country marked by poverty. 559

Indeed, while the actual age of an item or the amount of life cycles it had already gone through no longer mattered once it had been reworked to fulfill a new purpose, it mattered tremendously who actually wanted them. As Dikötter explains, the ownership of a new versus a recycled item served as a distinguishing feature of class affiliation during the jindai period—only the urban upper class could afford new goods that, to them, represented the ‘modern’. From their point of view, recycling was ‘backwards’. It transcended time boundaries in no way—in fact, it did the opposite: it represented the old. The items reworked in the recycling markets were made from those that urban elites exchanged for more fashionable ones. Recycling items, although so widespread that they represented a significant part of all market commodities in smaller cities and the countryside, were usually of such bad quality that only the poorest would buy them. But although the urban elites did not want those items for themselves, they still generally supported the idea of their circulation in the lower strata of society. As Dikötter points out, educated discourse about frugality and thrift has a history of several centuries in China. Chinese social elites continuously advocated recycling even after having become, in terms of their rising consumption of unreusable products, a throwaway class by the early twentieth century, suggesting thrift education in public schools and commenting about multiple possibilities to repurpose clothes, food, and discarded commodities in their magazines. Of course, members of poorer classes were far less likely to take part in these discourses themselves. Especially during war times, many members of the upper class advocated thrift and recycling in the household to help balance out shortages. To Dikötter, their “very need to disseminate advice about recycling in times of war may indicate how some affluent families had moved away from a culture of thrift”. Even though the elites had turned to consumerism and had

559 Dikötter, Things Modern, 14. See also 52–64. 266 developed an ambiguous relationship with old goods, the ways in which Chinese material culture had embraced recycling as a necessity was still present in their cultural memory.560 Yet, to others, constant thrift was very much still a reality in daily social life. Landsberger argues that a preference for “frugality and thrift [was] part of the Confucian discourse that prevailed in a society of scarcity. This discourse advocated the need for a self-sufficient economy and considered wasteful habits to be part of a guilty lifestyle.”561 But although the concept of frugality (jian 俭) is a component of classical Confucian ethics, it is difficult to determine whether cultural education was really as determining as the fundamental needs created by omnipresent scarcity themselves. Either way, there clearly existed an ambiguity between the urban elites’ moral affiliation with recycling and their preference for a consumption lifestyle. As Margherita Zanasi convincingly argues, opinions that rejected the frugality paradigm entirely were also widespread among the educated urban elites: liberalists with an understanding of Western economic theory advocated extravagance, consumerism, and entertainment as boosters for China’s industrialization and economic development, discrediting frugality as unfavorable stinginess. This view, of course, upset nationalist intellectuals that favored frugality, especially since they identified consumerism as an intrinsically Western and ultimately imperialist concept that prevented China from finding its own economic development path.562 As Zanasi explains, the rejection of “Western” consumerism formed a new frugality discourse during the early Republican period, which later echoed in Chiang Kai-shek’s nation-building initiatives and even parts of the ideology of the New Life Movement. It especially expressed itself in the advocacy of frugality education for children and a new identification of frugality with ‘Chineseness’—as opposed to ‘Western consumerism’. 563 Still, advocators of frugality could neither escape nor resolve the contradiction between these convictions and “the generally accepted notion that high standards of living were an expression of modernity” in which they wanted to take part and to which they wanted to contribute. 564 As becomes obvious in the above

560 Ibid., 61–62, 64. 561 Landsberger, Beijing Garbage, 31. 562 Zanasi, Margherita, “Frugal Modernity: Livelihood and Consumption in Republican China,” 391–392. 563 Ibid., 398. 564 Ibid. 267 observations, thrift and moral discourse on thrift took place in different spheres that usually did not overlap.

4.1.1. The Scavenging Business in jindai China The fact that thrifters and thrift advocators were entirely different actors that hardly ever interacted on the topic is characteristic of the Late Qing and Republican periods. Thus, twentieth-century Chinese recycling history can only be properly assessed if both groups are taken into account. Following intellectual discourses on thrift may reveal a lot of information on the social psychology of urban elites but tells us little about thrifting itself. Unless one takes on an oral history approach and succeeds at winning over actual former jindai recyclers— most of whom would be very old age by the this year of 2019—to engage in interviews, it is difficult for the historian to assess this group due to their lack of self-expression in written form. Their dominating background of extreme poverty, illiteracy, lack of trained skill, and life at the edge of subsistence stifled their voice. Jindai recycling took place entirely in the informal sector with few connections to local decision-makers or big businesses. According to Goldstein, the loose connections between individual vendors, each of whom struggled for their own survival, and the local markets they engaged in rarely formed structures that were strong enough to be called an actual “recycling system”.565 But although each individual was more or less on his or her own in terms of their survival, Goldstein confirms that they did form their own guilds and tried to pursue common interests in an organized fashion. Goldstein also identifies another systemic element that unified them, which is the way in which they acted as a link between local societies and the flow of objects within those societies through their “constant stewardship” of these objects. 566 While their personal fate was influenced by the objects that they received from society, they also re-influenced society through the transformations they performed on the objects. As Goldstein argues, through their stewardship and circulation, recycled items became more than just things: they became “products of social or community processes”567 as well as a special form of medium for exchange and communication, even though

565 Goldstein, Joshua, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 266. 566 This term was originally coined by Susan Strasser (Waste and Want) in the context of the pre-industrial US-American recycling society. 567 Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 268–269. 268 their distributors stood outside of the ‘regular’ social communities in most areas of urban life. In most cases, jindai recyclers were scavengers—the terms commonly used to describe them, shouhuang 収荒, shihuang 拾荒 or shipolan 拾破烂, were all more or less interchangeable terms for “scavenger” or “ragpicker”. As Goldstein has observed for the case of Republican Beijing, many were migrant workers with few possibilities to improve their income and social status; with a lot of luck, they found ‘career options’ for better positions within their business networks: ragpickers could advance to drum beaters (recycling product vendors who advertised their products beating a drum), basket carriers, clothes collectors, or even to jewelry and antiques hawkers or shop owners within the limited networks of the recycling markets,568 but not too much outside of those networks. It was not only the urban poor who relied on their goods—members of the poorest of the poor themselves, they needed to sell them just as desperately. Sudden changes in local political and economic conditions could easily cause countless people to end up as scavengers, such as, for example, in the case of the large unemployment wave when Beijing lost its status as the national capital in 1928.569 Conditions in Shanghai were similar due to its constant influx of migrants and refugees who were fleeing poverty, political crisis, or war in their regions of origin. Between 1842 and 1945, Shanghai’s population rose tenfold due to immigration from the Chinese countryside. While those migrants also included a minority of rural gentry, the majority were unskilled workers, many of them too poor to even bring their families over.570 In the eyes of late Qing and Republican Officials, such people were “wastes” (feimin 废民 or “waste people”). Associated with laziness, criminality and unproductivity that seemed to tie down the country’s development progress, the poor represented China’s developmental weakness and—similarly to ‘physical’ waste—, had to be removed from the streets. Poverty was criminalized; many Late Qing and Republican cities detained beggars in camps that applied combinations of forced labor and moral re-education in the attempt to integrate the poor, following a Japanese model of prison workhouses.571 In Shanghai, the situation was especially complicated: the foreign concessions refused to take any

568 Ibid., 267. 569 Landsberger, Beijing Garbage, 34. 570 Wakeman Jr., and Yeh, Wen-hsin, “Introduction”, 1–4. 571 Chen, Janet Y., Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900–1953, 15–16, 20, 22– 27. 269 responsibility for the urban poor, even expelling beggars beyond their jurisdiction borders. The Chinese municipality, in turn, left most of the responsibility to the charitable systems of local native place organizations, many of which resorted to the same measures of imprisonment and forced labor in order to be able to control the enormous amount of people, especially young orphans, that they took in.572 Scavengers, although different from beggars in the fact that they actually sold something, were also exposed to all of these discriminations. Without the certified skills that regular workers received, for example, during a proper education in the handicrafts, they were missing the social status associated with a profession.573 Their daily struggle was, if actively observed by their more affluent contemporaries, rarely discussed among a wider public. Only very rarely were reflections on their situation published in local newspapers and magazines, such as the following compassionate observations documented by a school teenager named Chen Xiuying 陈秀瑛 and published in the Shenbao in 1938 in the form of a short story. On her way to school in the early morning, the teenage girl, who is herself from a middle or upper class background, observes a group of scavenging children who seem to have been sent out to collect scraps for an organized circle of scavengers, and is devastated by the hardship she witnesses: [...]一個較矮的男孩呌小狗子吧因為另一個男孩正在呌他呢，他穿了一件破的棉衣，一雙破球鞋；較高的男孩的衣服似乎比他好一點；後面跟着二個女孩子，衣服眞是襤褸極了，頭髮又都亂着。大的穿了花布的單衣，凍得通紅的手，在把被西北風吹起的單衣按住；另一個小的，不過穿了單衣，那雙凍得通紅的脚上，還拖着一雙很大的高跟鞋。她拚命地使牠不要掉去，然而，因為實在太大了，幾次，幾次，總是掉下來。未了，她哭了，可是那二個男孩，還要譏笑她：“又要掉下來，又要穿，還不是赤着脚好”。那大的女孩到安慰她似的說：“別哭了！快走吧，垃圾拾不到還不是一頓臭罵”。無情的西北風，呼呼的吹來；眼淚鼻涕，流成一片…… [...] [...] One relatively short boy was apparently called “Doggy”, because that was what another boy called him. He was wearing a worn-off cotton suit and a pair of torn sports shoes; the taller boy’s clothes looked a bit better. Two girls were following behind them. Their clothes were extremely shabby and their hair was a mess. The taller one wore an unlined dress with a flower print. Her hands red from the cold, she pressed down the dress that was flapping in the northwest wind. The other one was younger but also wore an unlined dress. On her feet, both red from the cold, she was dragging a pair of very big high-heeled shoes. She tried desperately to prevent them

572 Ibid., 36, 38–40, 43. 573 On the status of artisans and the regulation of standards for the handicrafts, see Christine Moll-Murata’s recent volume, State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). 270 from falling off [her feet], but because they were too big, they fell off again and again. She cried, but the two boys even laughed at her: “They’ll keep falling off and you’ll have to keep putting them back on. You should better just go barefoot.” The older girl seemed to [want to] comfort her and said: “Stop crying! Let’s go, if we don’t pick up that waste we’ll be heavily scolded.” The merciless northwest wind came howling forth; tears and snot merged in a stream [down her face]… 574

Looking down on herself, the school girl sees her own warm coat and scarf and feels ashamed for being so well off. As she witnesses the little girl with the big shoes being shouted at and kicked by a disgusted passer-by, she can bear the misery no longer and gives the girl her pocket money, then runs away immediately, too nervous to encourage any further interaction.575 In general, reports about compassion and support towards scavengers are rare while neglect and disapproval were the norm. Janet Chen describes that the urban poor, workless and dependent on charity, were often stigmatized as parasites (chong 虫) in Republican times as they were believed to be only taking from society but giving nothing back, all the while burdening the national economy.576 Certainly, through their active engagement transforming used and broken items into new, usable ones, scavengers actually did make a contribution, and an important one as well. Paradoxically, however, the Late Qing and Republican middle and upper classes seem to have been relatively unconscious of this fact even though parts of them held recycling and frugality so high. This could be related to the fact that recycling markets tended to exist in spheres—both in a social and spatial sense—that the elites simply did not frequent very much and didn’t actively observe the recycling culture. For example, Dong mentions that Republican Beijing’s Tianqiao district was physically too dirty to be enjoyable for members of the upper class so that they consequently avoided spending time there. Lower class people, in turn, ignored the bad hygienic conditions and focused on the entertainment offered there and the purchases they could make. 577 Low tolerance for scavengers—many of whom were reported to be women and children—is mentioned occasionally in the SMA’s preserved files from the International Settlement. However, the fact that scavengers are generally hardly

574 “Jietou fengjing——shisan sui Chen Xiuying 街头风景——十三岁陈秀瑛,” Shenbao 申报, 5 December, 1938, 13. 575 Ibid. 576 Chen, Guilty of Indigence, 54. 577 Dong, “Juggling Bits,” 307, 313. 271 ever mentioned at all in these documents seems to support Chen’s aforementioned statement that the Shanghai Municipal Council simply refused to be bothered with them much at all. A 1930 report documents the common habit observed among scavengers to turn over public waste bins in search for valuables, ashes, and cinders that could be resold. The Shanghai Municipal Council objected to this behavior, not only because scattered garbage was an unpleasant sight but also because it was considered hygienically objectionable and because it happened very frequently. The same report quotes an officer at Louza Police Station (Laozha xunbu fang 老闸巡捕房, located at the corner of Guizhou lu/Tianjin lu in the center of today’s Huangpu district),578 who gave to protocol: “In this district [around Louza Police Station] alone there must be at least 200 persons who make their livelihood by picking garbage […].” The Police had also observed the International Settlement’s own street cleaners showing solidarity with the scavengers, tipping their waste collections for them at various street corners and even assisting them sort through the piles. While the authorities did not explicitly object against the retrieval of valuables per se, they lamented that, because of this practice, the street cleaners were leaving uncollected waste behind.579 In Late Qing and Republican Chengdu, the acceptance of scavengers was not much higher. Although Wang mentions that there were initially no local restrictions to selling goods, even if they were second-hand, criminal trade activities such as the sales of stolen and counterfeit goods were common, and as of the New Policies period, Chengdu’s streets were meticulously controlled.580 Scavengers were under general suspicion due to a general skepticism towards the recyclers’ morals. With the New Policies, second hand traders were obliged to subdue to a “circle of guarantors” (lianhuanbao 连环保) formed by two random households and a leading “shop guarantor” (pubao 铺保) who were willing to guarantee for a vendor’s trustworthiness (see also the following block quotation on p. 275). These individuals were obliged to co-operate with the police, report stolen goods and assist in theft investigations.581 There are very few sources that go into detail on these reinforced conditions; one of them is the Chengdu tonglan 成都统揽 [Comprehensive Overview on Chengdu], compiled by Fu Chongju 傅

578 Cf. “Louza Police Station.” Virtual Shanghai Database: Buildings. 579 U1-14-2802. 580 Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu, 34–35, 38, 133. 581 Ibid., 133–134. 272 崇矩 in 1909/10. Often described as a ‘proto-form of a traveller’s guidebook’, its purpose was directed both outward an in: on the one hand, it was supposed to facilitate orientation for strangers to the city, especially for external merchants and traders. On the other hand, its author used it as a platform to subtly point out possible fields for social reform to the local authorities.582 Michael Schön, who has published the most comprehensive critical discussion of the Chengdu tonglan to date, warns that even though the book provides information on countless historical details that are otherwise hard to reconstruct, its content is too inconsistent and biased to be considered as a fully reliable historical source. While acknowledging the book’s richness of detail, Schön criticizes Wang Di for having referred to the book as a kind of “Late Qing encyclopedia” in his first Teahouse monograph. Arguing that information in the Chengdu tonglan cannot be taken for granted, Schön advises to address its content with a critical distance.583 Major weaknesses of the book, which he identifies as limiting factors for its qualification as a primary source, include 1) a lack of explanation why certain presented topics are chosen over others and what sources they are informed by; 2) a lack of a holistic narrative, distortion of the content; 3) a lack of comments and background information on most things presented; and 4) the author’s subjective bias that is expressed in various contexts.584 While Schön’s critique could, in principle, be also applied to various ‘classical’ historical resources such as archival documents and historical newspapers, the case of the Chengdu tonglan is special because it is the only source of its kind written for the entire Chengdu area during the Late Qing and Republican periods. Therefore, contrary to archival documents and historical newspapers, which often provide a sufficient amount of compatible results upon which to weigh and determine the validity of key findings, large parts of the Chengdu tonglan’s content cannot be verified in hindsight. However, its richness of detail still continues to convince researchers to refer to it, and local historians of Chengdu and Sichuan province generally advocate for its overall usefulness as a supportive source.585 During her own investigation of the Chengdu tonglan, the author of this thesis has found that its content is often divided into

582 Schön, Michael, Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung einer Beschreibung der chinesischen Provinzhauptstadt Chengdu aus dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Das Chengdu tonglan (Umfassende Übersicht über Chengdu 1909/10), 279. 583 Ibid., 297. 584 Schön, Das Chengdu tonglan, 252–258. 585 Personal statement by local historian Professor Dr. Li Deying 李德英, Department of History and Culture, Sichuan University. 273 highly descriptive versus more biased passages. In the case of the Late Qing recycling trade, the fact that most passages on local scavengers are of the descriptive type and contain little to no discussion could suggest a higher degree of historical ‘authenticity’ of the concerned content than passages that primarily convey the author’s opinion on a given topic. Although it is possible that author Fu Chongju may have made incorrect observations, the information he conveys on the topic is very basic and may well have been common knowledge to his local contemporaries, while providing new information only to outsiders. Although he does not reveal his sources of information on the topic, at least he keeps them so simple that they are not recognizably distorted by any explicit judgments of his. Overall, the information on scavengers presented in the Chengdu tonglan is very limited. We learn that markets for old clothes, rags, and metallic objects were located by the old East Gate and in the old emperor’s city (today’s Tianfu Square, Tianfu guangchang 天府广场).586 We also learn that local scavengers used their own taboo slang, a code vocabulary to announce prices and count numbers that differed from the vocabulary that other groups of hawkers and vendors used. For example, as transliterated in the section “Chengyi shouhuang tong yong yanci 成衣収荒通用言辞 (Words used by tailors and scavengers),” displayed in the chapter “Chengdu zhi ge hang ren maimai tong yong yanci 成都之个行人买卖通用言辞 (Words that people from each business branch in Chengdu use during trade),” the figures 1 to 9 were pronounced gan 干; yuan 元; chun 春; luo 罗; hua 话; jiao 交; hua 化; gong 公; and xu 旭. A price expressed as “hua chun 化春” represented the figure 730 in the local currency (an implied “one hundred” in such figures being verbally omitted). The section “Shouhuang xiao shengyi tong yong yanci 収荒小生意通用言辞 (Words used by small-trade scavengers)” presents yet another set of vocabulary with the figures 1 to 9 pronounced as: yao 邀; an 按; su 苏; sao 扫; wai 歪; liao 料; qiao 桥; ben 奔; and jiao 搅. For example, a price expressed as “yao’an 邀按” represented 120 in the local currency, “ansao 按扫” was 240, “suben 苏奔” 380, “waiben 歪奔” 580, etc.587 The origin of this way of speaking is not investigated any further; although the book reveals that the

586 Fu Chongju 傅崇矩, ed., Chengdu tonglan 成都通览, 484–486—chapter: “Chengdu zhi maiwu jiedao yilan 成都之卖物街道一览 (Overview Over Chengdu’s Shopping Streets)”. 587 Ibid., 275. 274 scavengers were not the only trade group to use their own vocabulary when announcing prices, Fu does not elaborate on the origins of such differences in lingo, and gives no further examples. Other than implying that their way of speaking distinguished scavengers as a trade group, this information teaches nothing about the trade itself. The purpose of these sections is probably to facilitate trade interactions for merchants and other outsiders who were strangers to the city and unfamiliar with the local vernacular. Fu does not go much into detail on typical characteristics of the local scavenger group, although he includes a few drawings of them in the chapter “Chengdu zhi zhiye ren ji zhonglei 成都之执业人即种类 (Different professionals and types of professions in Chengdu)”, where he gives a general visual overview on the local business diversity (see some reproductions in the Appendix to this thesis). Instead, Fu dedicates a long paragraph entitled “Shouhuang 収荒 (Scavengers)” in the chapter “Chengdu zhi zhiye ren ji zhonglei 成都之执业人即种类 (Different Professions and Types of Businesses in Chengdu)” to new restrictions—possibly issued by the provincial government or directly by the Chengdu Police—588 to control criminal activity among the scavenger group, especially the allegedly common habit to trade in stolen goods. This section quotes, but does not discuss recent legislation on recycling trade restrictions. Apparently, it quotes an official regulation announcement issued by the Chengdu Police, perhaps even in its original wording. Excerpts of this announcement, as displayed in the Chengdu tonglan, read: 凡摆摊挑担，收买碎衣物者，谓之収荒。近经警局发有牌照规则，不准收买贼赃。[...] 巡警道頒发収荒的规则如下：第一条凡収荒的，无论是开铺子、摆摊子、领了牌照之后，才准収荒。你们即得本居答应，就要尊守条款，不可违背。本局随时有人稽查，若无牌照私做生意，是要治罪的。第二条你们要做这项生意，先要找一家妥实铺保，还要两家同行道的连环保结。若果做了不法的事，准保人举发。保人如不举发，一并治罪。倘若找不着保人，就不准做这项生意。 [...] 第五条不准收买贼赃。凡来卖的，定要细细盘问他。如果他说来不对头，就把他挡上局来。本局问明是贼赃，有失主来局认领，本局叫

588 As Stapleton describes, the Chengdu Police (founded in 1903/03) enjoyed great autonomy in enforcing public order but was ultimately dependent on directions from the Sichuan provincial government, which funded the Police through taxes (cf. Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu, esp. 109). 275 他酌量酬劳你们。若莫失主，本局将东西充公拍卖后，在卖得的价钱内，十成中提一成，赏给你们。[...] [...] 第七条凡收买物件，你们必须问明卖物的人姓甚名谁，住在哪条街上。凡是收买过路人的东西，都要存留五日，到五日之后，无人清问，再行发卖。第八条无论开铺子，摆摊子，挑担子，若要搬家，或是要换摆摊子地方，都要禀了本局，等答应了才得迁移，不准私自偷搬。 [...] 第十条此项牌照，应各做一木板，牢牢贴。摆摊子的将来挂在摊前，挑担子的把他挂在担上，若果拿着牌照不悬挂，本局定照无牌照同罚的。凡不尊第一、第二、第三、第七、第九、第十条的，挂禁。不尊第四、第五、第六、第八条的、拘案重办。又，凡是兵勇们穿的号衣坎，一概不准收买。又，挑担収荒，不准人杂院之内，只准在院外当街处照章收买。

Shoulder-pole vendors and people who deal in scraps are usually called scavengers. In consequence of a [new] regulation on license plates issued recently by the Police Station, it is no longer allowed to purchase stolen goods. [...] The regulations concerning scavengers that the Inspector’s Office has ordered read as follows: 1. Ordinary scavengers, whether they be pop-up store or shoulder-pole vendors, may only scavenge if they have received a license plate. You immediately have to register with the Police Department and obey with the regulations; you cannot go against them. The Police will have officers patrolling [in town] at any time. If you have no license plate and pursue your trade illegally, you will be punished. 2. If you want to pursue this trade, you first have to find a valid guarantor as well as two dealers of the same trade background from the circle of guarantors to guarantee for you. If you have done something illegal, these guarantors will report you. If they don’t, they will also be punished. If you can’t find guarantors you are not allowed to pursue this trade. [...] 5. You are not allowed to purchase stolen goods. […] If you buy from someone, you need to carefully question them. If they don’t answer properly, you need to get in their way and come to the Police station. The Police will clarify whether it is stolen goods. If the owner of the lost property comes to the station to claim the goods, the Police will make them consider to reward you. If no owner shows up, the Police will confiscate the goods, sell them in an auction and reward you by a tenth of the price that the item makes. [...] [...] 7. Whenever you purchase something, you need to find out the vendors’ family and given names and in which street they live. If you buy something from someone who passes by, you need to keep the items for five days. Only if no one claims them after five days you can resell them. 8. Regardless of whether you are a hawker, a stall owner, or shoulder-pole vendor: if you want to move houses or if you want to change the location of

276 your stall, you need to report to the Police station and await permission before you can move. It is forbidden to move secretly without permission. [...] 10. For the license plate you have to prepare a wooden board and glue it on safely. Stall owners have to hang it up in front of their store, shoulder-pole carriers have to hang it from their pole. If you are holding it in your hand but haven’t hung it up, the Police will punish you just as if you had no plate at all.589

According to the announcement, an offence against one or several of these regulations could result in a ban (gua jin 挂禁) or “severe punishment with detainment (ju’an zhongban 拘案重办)”. Fu’s assumed intention concerning this section is, again, to address visitors and outside merchants coming to Chengdu. Although the quotation contains passages that directly address the scavengers themselves with “nimen yao 你们要 (you must)” or “nimen ji dei 你们即得 (you immediately have to)” etc., Fu himself, in contrast to the Police that issued the original announcement, certainly did not write for them. Schön mentions that the Chengdu tonglan is written in rather simple language in order to also reach a lesser-educated audience,590 however, due to their high illiteracy rate, scavengers are unlikely to have been amongst it (this actually also applies for the original announcement, which only few of them may have been able to read themselves). Instead, this passage probably aims at demonstrating to outsiders that the Chengdu Police was taking active measures to control this ‘problematic group’ while also giving instructions on how to avoid being drawn into black market transactions and making oneself liable to prosecution as a result. The latter is expressed in the passages that directly address people who want to buy from scavengers. Although there is no author’s comment in this section that is overtly discriminative against scavengers, the fact that Fu features this content still suggests that he sees the scavengers as at least ‘shady’ or possibly criminal. One could additionally interpret a possible motivation of Fu’s to portray Chengdu as a city that is catching up with the ‘modernist’ ideals of law and order during the Late Qing Reform period. The rigorousness with which the new Chengdu Police enforced new regulations during the New Policies era has already been addressed in chapter 1.2., and it seems plausible that Fu would want

589 Fu, Chengdu tonglan, 194–195. 590 Schön, Das Chengdu tonglan, 295. 277 to prepare his readers—maybe not without taking some pride in it—for a strong presence of Police in town and high alertness towards illegal activities. A sub-group of scavengers, printed paper collectors (shouzizhi 收字纸), is treated separately in the Chengdu tonglan in the section following the one on scavengers (which is, at the same time, the last section in the book that addresses scavengers in general). Apparently, paper recycling was not a very lucrative business. Fu explains that “they are all said to be poverty-stricken and old. Wenchang-[God of Literature]Associations support them everywhere. Some have vowed [to the God] to roam the streets for printed wastepaper for one or two years. These two types usually do not really earn anything (cixie pinku nianlao zhe suo wei, you gechu Wenchang hui suo yang zhe, you xuyuan yanjie shou zi yi er nian zhe, ci er zhong jun bu suo qian mi 此皆贫苦年老者所为，有各处文昌会所养者，有许愿沿街收字一二年者，此二种均不索钱米).” 591 Fu then reveals a personal opinion, stating what he does not like about this group: 而有一种特别之恶习，无人不切齿，撕商家所贴之告白、招帖。该收字者不管新告白、旧告白，一见即扯 […]。此于商务大有影响，又宜禁者也。 And they have a special kind of bad habit that makes everybody grind their teeth over, which is that they tear down announcements and recruitment notifications hung up by shopowners. Those paper collectors don’t care whether the announcements are old or new; they pull them down as they see them […]. This has a very bad impact on trade and should be forbidden.

Whether the paper collectors tore those announcements down out of ignorance or whether they simply couldn’t read them, they most certainly did it because every collected piece of paper counted for their livelihood. It is unclear why Fu singles this group out in a separate paragraph; either, local newspaper collectors did indeed not fall into the general local “scavenger” category, or he uses the opportunity to ‘nudge’ the Chengdu authorities towards a new regulation against paper theft, explicitly pointing out that this group is causing damage to the local economy. In opposition to Shanghai, where scavengers were just random members of the urban poor whom the municipalities did not care about, there is evidence on some scavengers’ identities in the case of Chengdu. Also in Shanghai, the average lower-class citizens supposedly had some kind of direct relationship with

591 Fu, Chengdu tonglan, 195. 278 scavengers as they frequently bought from them but to elites and the authorities, they remained anonymous as long as they did not attract attention through criminal activity. In Late Republican Chengdu, however, this was different: in contrast to Shanghai, local regulations allowed members of the municipal street cleaning units to salvage valuables from the waste they collected on a daily basis. Usually, they served the recycling trade at the lowest level, picking out recyclables such as metal, rags, dry peels, wood, paper, hair, feathers, glass, straw, and bits of unburned coal from collected waste heaps and selling them to middlemen who were higher up in the ‘recycling chain’. Allegedly, some of these materials even made it into export products, but most of them were reworked right in town as Chengdu’s up-and-coming business sector had multiple purposes for them. The local law was so flexible that theoretically, a street cleaner was free to keep the entire waste material he collected for resale; often the street cleaners’ whole families were involved in picking through a day’s worth of street sweepings, trying to efficiently sort out anything of remaining value. What they left behind was ready to be sold as fertilizer, which, as previously mentioned in chapter 2.2.1, was the municipality’s domain.592 Due to this situation, the Late Republican Chengdu municipality and police must have had a clear picture of each individual involved in low-level informal recycling, since every street cleaner was personally registered. Theoretically, this must also have facilitated access to and identification of individuals in higher recycling trade positions, as the street cleaners likely knew at least their middlemen rather well. Of course, the street cleaners were not necessarily the same individuals who sold recycled items in the streets of Chengdu and to local businesses, and a lot of additional scavenging took place that did not involve the street cleaners (see, for example, the case of the newspaper collectors). Still, their identity is another piece in the puzzle that reveals some of the informal structures that could stand behind jindai recycling structures. Certainly, in order to trace back the supra-regional penetration of such structures, future research would have to verify whether the involvement of street cleaners in local-level recycling was unique to Chengdu or representative of other Republican inland cities as well.

592 Cf. SPA, 民 148-05-10132. This previously cited report dates from 1940. 279 SCAVENGERS IN COLONIAL HONG KONG

The above examples show that Late Qing and Republican scavengers subsisted on sufferance, were discriminated against and faced various restrictions but were ultimately tolerated at a low level. In Hong Kong, this was officially not the case. Here, in line with some of the previously mentioned measures against assumedly ‘contaminated’ goods and property owned by the local Chinese poor, scavenging was framed as a public health concern very early on in the history of the colony: already the “Summary Offences Ordinance No. 7 of 1845” strictly prohibited scavenging activities in public: [Every person shall be liable to a fine who] without lawful authority rakes or picks over any refuse deposited in or upon any public place, vacant land or refuse depôt, or in any dust bin, dust box, dust basket or dust cart standing in or upon any public place, vacant land or refuse depot, or removes any portion of any refuse so deposited […].593

Whether this Ordinance aimed more at preventing the general public from getting into contact with possibly contaminated items (the circulation of such goods through the scavenging business was most certainly part of the reason for this paragraph), or simply at keeping scavengers from being a ‘nuisance’ in public, or whether it was a combination of both—it definitely discriminated against a part of the lowest stratum of the local society. From the very beginning of Hong Kong’s colonial phase, with their livelihoods dependent on the waste trade, local scavengers could only choose between pursuing the trade illegally and risking fines or resorting to begging if they were unable to find other work opportunities. Another early regulation on urban hygiene, the “Good Order and Cleanliness Ordinance” of 1844, required one member of each street cleaning division to position themselves permanently around the public waste bins during work hours, both in order to ensure that people dumped their waste in the bins and not anywhere else but also, explicitly, to keep scavengers from accessing the bins.594 These restrictive regulations were probably implemented so early on because the colonial administrators were already familiar with what they believed to be hygienically problematic about scavenging in dense urban areas like Victorian

593 “Summary Offences Ordinance No. 7 of 1845: An Ordinance to make Provision for the Preservation of Good Order and Cleanliness and the Prevention of nuisances,” 26th December, 1845, in The Ordinances of Hongkong, 1844–1923, Prepared under Authority of Ordinance No. 18 of 1923, edited by Arthur Dyer Ball (Hong Kong, 1923), 24. 594 “Ordinance No. 5 of 1844: Good Order and Cleanliness,” 20 March, 1844, in The Ordinances of the Legislative Council of the Colony of Hongkong, Commencing with the Year 1844, 14–16. 280 London—vivid examples are described by Cooper and Jackson.595 Experience from other colonial contexts and typical imperial administrative and coordinative strategies are also likely to have played an important role in this context; after all, in Alison Bashford’s words, colonial rule was strongly motivated by the principles of “development by sanitation”, “spatial government” through a classification of both people and things in categories, such as “clean” or “dangerous”, and the incentive to establish hygienic control and social reform through discipline, punishment, and segregation.596 The fact that ‘problems’ with scavengers—or even any closer investigations of them as a social group—are rarely ever dicussed in the archival records of colonial Hong Kong held at the PRO speaks for the assumption that the regulations and supervision worked somewhat to the colonial government’s satisfaction, at least as far as the visibility of scavenging activities in public was concerned. Consequently, little concrete information in written form is available on early- to mid-twentieth century scavengers, their working and living conditions as well as their performance as recyclers. As the following section will show, the early colonial regulations did not cause the scavenging business in Hong Kong to disappear at all. However, it is likely to have become more discrete, thus either falling somewhat under the radar of the colonial officials’ active inspection or perhaps even being tolerated by them to a certain extent, as long as obvious ‘nuisance’ was avoided.

4.1.2. Transformation and Continuity in the Informal Recycling Sector during the Revolutionary and Reform Periods

SCAVENGING UNDER COMMUNISM

After the establishment of communism in New China, the act of scavenging experienced a fundamental image change. The previously informal recycling structures that had been held up by individual effort were now institutionalized, sustained and promoted by the state. Goldstein sums up the three major systemic transformations that the centralization and nationalization of recycling brought to this trade: first, it was formalized and subdued to fixed administrative patterns spelled out meticulously by the communist bureaucracy. Second, recycling was

595 Cooper, “Challenging the ‘Refuse Revolution’,” 713–715; Jackson, Dirty Old London, 18– 20. 596 Cf., Bashford, Alison, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health, esp.1–2, 10, 186. 281 now planned and carried out in offices and through designated, local-level state companies (feipin huishou gongsi 废品回收公司, “waste recycling companies”) that cooperated directly with the local supply and marketing cooperatives (gongxiao hezuoshe 供销合作社). Third, the entire new recycling sector was organized according to specific industrial goals. While some common recyclables fulfilled this purpose better than many others, some categories, especially those that were identified as consumer goods, such as jewelry, or represented the ‘old days’, such as old clothes and antiques, completely lost their purpose.597 Obviously, the communist city administrations knew well how to use already existing structures to develop the new system. Goldstein has reconstructed for the case of Beijing that local waste peddlers, street cleaners, and other individuals connected to the local recycling trade were simply collectivized into the Beijingshi feipin huishou gongsi along with the goods they had previously been trading. They continued what they had been doing, with the only difference that they no longer roamed the streets at their own terms and no longer sold waste piece by piece but in bulk.598 Hence, the same individuals continued to carry out recycling as in Republican times, preserving also their knowledge, which they could now—at least in theory—gather more systematically in their new danwei. Landsberger also points out that the communist system raised their social status. In joining a feipin gongsi, former individual waste pickers “actually attained an elevated position. They became state workers with a national responsibility”.599 This new status remained relatively stable throughout the Mao period, although the prestige gain was most emphasized between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. For example, a report on a local Shanghai model company entitled “Wei geming ‘shi polan’ bian laji wei huangjin—ji chuchu wei guojia jieyue kanxiang de Yongsheng yelianchang 为革命“拾破烂”变垃圾为黄金——记处处为国家节约看想的永胜冶炼厂 (Picking Rags for the Revolution and Turning Waste into Gold: On the Yongsheng Foundry Factory, Which Is Striving to Economize for the Nation in Every Respect)”, compiled in 1965 and held at the SMA, declares thorough recycling as an act of special revolutionary value. According to the report, the employess of Yongsheng factory, which was located in Shanghai’s

597 Cf. Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 270–271, 274. 598 Ibid., 270–271. 599 Landsberger, Beijing Garbage, 36. 282 Yangpu 杨浦 district, recycled waste since they were making a living from it (literally, chi laji 吃垃圾 or “to eat waste”). Its only 20 employees who tirelessly transformed China’s poverty into wealth “defied neither strain nor bitterness (yi bu pa nan er bu pa ku 一不怕难二不怕苦)”, following the motto “ragpicking also means ‘doing the revolution’ (shi polan ye shi gan geming 拾垃圾也是干革命 )” with determination. 600 The report lauds the foundry factory for its resourcefulness in exploiting multiple sources of waste materials, among them street waste, scrap collections, bulk purchases, and heaps of already collected waste that other companies had not gotten around to sift through; they also went scavenging in old dumping sites. The company was said to be so resource conscious that even the oven they used for smelting metal was recycled. According to the report, this company’s members’ motivation was extraordinarily high as they saw the wealth hidden in huge amounts of leftovers and the wastefulness it would mean to leave those riches uncovered. Contrary to many of their fellow citizens who, allegedly, only expected poor revenue from the labor- intensive scrap collection, they did not dread the effort it took to extract valuables, especially metals. The report goes on stating that usually only ten percent of the local waste contained any metal at all, however, since the mid-1950s this factory had managed to salvage 15,778 tons of soft metal, 20,600 kg of silver, and 1,130 liang (equaling 56 kg) of gold, thus retrieving metals with a total value of 4,700,000 yuan.601 Despite the enthusiasm conveyed in they report, it conceals that all waste was not equal in its benefits for China’s industries; in fact, the variety of materials that they needed the most was relatively limited. Thus, a lot of waste that was collected was never really recycled for industrial purposes. In contrast to its self- presentation—which is likely to have been portrayed as much more efficient in internal reports than the real-life conditions actually suggested—, the communist recycling system was, in Goldstein’s words, not “holistic” at all and, importantly, had no intentional connection with the environment. 602 And although the communist recycling system experienced great benefits from integrating the expertise and workforce of former street scavengers, New China still did not fully

600 SMA, B233-1-79-22, 1. 601 Ibid., 5, 7–8. 602 Cf. Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 274. 283 appreciate them as members of the communist society. As Chen explains, the Communist Party had difficulties classifying the urban poor into different revolutionary groups. Even though they were treated as a group they were individuals of mixed origins and background and could not be uniformly classified. Depending on their attested inclination to work they were assigned to the “revolutionary” versus “reactionary” categories. Whoever was willing to obtain a license for some kind of trade or work could be upgraded to “laborer” status, while many others were detained in workhouses for political reeducation, punishment, and forced labor, much like in Late Qing and Republican times. In Shanghai, the situation was especially bad during the early years of the People’s Republic, with over 400,000 unemployed in 1952.603 As a local Party opinion paper entitled “Shihuangren de jieji douzheng qingkuang 拾荒人的阶级斗争情况 (On Scavengers and Class Struggle)”, drafted in 1966, from the collections of the Shanghai Municipal Archives reveals, willingness to work was not the only determining factor that could classify a former scavenger as ‘reactionary’. The paper also reveals that still not all former scavengers had been successfully integrated into danwei; individual scavenging still existed in the mid-1960s, although the number of individuals had shrunk by half. While Shanghai counted 20,000 identified scavengers at the time of “liberation”, seven years later only 10,000 were left—for reasons that the paper does not disclose. Integration into danwei that specialized in recycling, transfer to other professions but also detainment are likely explanations. Of those 10,000 individuals about 2,000 specialized in industrial wastes, which the authors of the report identify as the most useful contribution this group made to the communist society. Other than that, the paper describes them as badly integrated, with an especially high percentage of “bad elements” (huaifenzi 坏分子—a category of the sileifenzi 四类分子 or “four kinds of elements” that also discredited former land lords, rich peasants, and counter-revolutionaries as “reactionaries”).604 The authors of the paper diagnose a number of ‘objectionable’ personality traits among these scavengers as well as some habits that made it especially hard for the Party to properly control this group. One of them was the scavengers’ ability to seemingly disperse in the public sphere, becoming invisible and intangible, being anywhere

603 Chen, Guilty of Indigence, 222–229. 604 SMA, B182-1-1314-161. 284 and nowhere at the same time. According to the paper, this behavior was strategic; allegedly, scavengers had long since practiced their skills to stay under the radar, calling themselves “zhenkong renwu 真空人物 (people of the vacuum)”. But their unwillingness to integrate was, allegedly, even stronger than that. The opinion paper criticizes: 有说的：“拾垃圾最自由，不受管教，天天过礼拜天。一玩，二拾，三拿，四吃，五睡，已经是过共产主义生活了。” Some say: “Scavengers are the freest of all. They don’t accept being controlled. All days are like Sundays to them. They just have a good time, they pick some waste, they keep it for themselves, they eat, and then they sleep. They live as if it’s already communism.”605

It goes without saying that characteristics such as individualism, non-conformity and an irregular work schedule or even a self-empowerment to indulge in idle hours was contrary to the communist social and work organization; it was thus disapproved of by officials. The authors of the report go on revealing their ultimate judgment on the scavenger group: “youxie shehui zhazi zai shihuangren zhong 有些社会渣滓在拾荒人中 (there is some societal garbage among the scavengers).” The paper goes on generalizing scavengers as greedy for money and food coupons, as potential thieves, lazy workers, and as primitive entertainment buffs who love to eat, gamble, and get into fights.606 Basically, the authors label them with all the negative traits that they had already been infamous for during the Late Qing and Republican periods, which can either be a result of prevailing general prejudice against scavengers that had existed since pre-communist times, or of the fact that the officials were possibly still dealing with the very same individuals. As the paper states, many scavengers were rather old age, some having been scavenging since the 1930s.607 However, in line with the Communist Party’s new standards, the authors identify their worst traits as problematic in an ideological sense: they allegedly tended to “undermine society’s moral habits (baihuai shehui fenghua xingwei 败坏社会风化行为)” and to disrespect the socialist economic system—for example, by overtly idealizing trade conditions in free, capitalist market economies such as Hong Kong. They also appeared inclined to boycott the communist economy altogether, planning to become a next

605 Ibid., 2. The reference to Sundays, usually the only day of the week on which people were free to do as they pleased, implies that the scavengers did not comply with any kind of fixed work schedule. 606 Ibid., 2. 607 Ibid., 1. 285 generation of “nouveaux riches (baofahu 暴发户)” by selling their scraps on black markets at their own prices instead of handing them in with the recycling companies. The authors’ close-up suggestion is to keep the scavenger group under close supervision and conduct further studies on them in order to evaluate possibilities for their political reeducation.608 All in all, individual scavengers were portrayed as a possible threat to the stability of the communist society. Unfortunately, at this point, the author of this thesis is in possession of too little primary evidence to trace back explicitly what measures were taken against them and how they were integrated into the communist social hierarchy.609

CLOSING THE LOOP: INFORMAL RECYCLING DURING THE REFORM AND POST-REFORM PERIODS, AND IN LATE COLONIAL HONG KONG Dikötter, Goldstein, and Landsberger, among others, have previously indicated that national recycling can be regarded as a kind of ‘intermezzo’ in an otherwise long-living system of informal recycling that had flourished during the entire first half of the twentieth century and been put largely ‘on hold’ during the Revolutionary phase, but ultimately ‘resurrected’ quite naturally with the reopening reforms after 1978—however, under different socio-economic preconditions. Goldstein shows that the major influential factors on the re- establishment of informal recycling after 1978 were market expansion, the reintroduction of consumerism and disposability, the transformation of markets, and the concept of environmental sustainability, which had only recently been introduced to China. 610 With decollectivization progressing and the socialist economic system on the decline, the state-owned recycling companies lost influence as the prices for recycling items fell and less and less people took on the effort to deliver their wastes to them.611 Competing private companies appeared that formed alliances with industries and investors as well as governments and developers at the local level. As municipal governments did not take the initiative to control waste flows, individual recyclers took over the ground work, specializing mostly in materials that local recycling companies were no longer interested in and selling them to private companies instead.612 Like in Republican

608 Ibid., 4–5. 609 Both Landsberger’s and Goldstein’s publications are unspecific about these events as well. 610 Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 275. 611 Ibid, 277. 612 Landsberger, Beijing Garbage, 47, 49. 286 times, most of them were unlicensed, untrained migrant workers who originated from very poor backgrounds.613 However, economic geographer Shichao Li points out that they were no longer scavengers who roamed the streets for free materials but junk-buyers who bonded with the public in real business connections. She states that whereas scavengers “hunt for throwaway recyclable waste either from dumping sites or from other dirty sources along streets”, “junk-buyers [are] door- to-door collectors [that] pay cash to participants who accumulate amounts of relatively clean recyclables”.614 Goldstein calls them entrepreneurs as they were not merely carrying out manual labor but followed a business strategy, often with the goal to climb up the business hierarchy within the local recycling networks.615 Coming directly to the households, workshops, and stores, the junk-buyers delivered the most convenient service to anybody who needed to get rid of recyclables, especially since the prices were always negotiable.616 In similarity with Republican times, migrant junk-buyers were the lowest links in a chain of new, extensive and highly dynamic recycling markets that included recycling stall-owners, shop-owners, storage providers, landfill managers, transfer point managers, and transfer markets, the latter of which delivered cross-country and were managed by the heads of the recycling chain, the dalaoban 大老板 (“big bosses”).617 As indicated already in the introduction, the return to free-market informal recycling closed a loop and re-established (or: carried forward) a system that had been in place in China since the beginning of the twentieth century and earlier. Also, much like in Republican times, recycling entrepreneurs again became the individuals who carried most of the practical recycling knowledge and were able to make invaluable contributions to sustainable resource allocation in China, more or less with their bare hands, until recent legal restrictions have again limited their capacities to initiate material flows. In all of these characteristics, the late-twentieth-century mainland Chinese informal recycling structures suddenly resembled the Hong Kong recycling markets again. In Hong Kong, the ‘loop’ had never been broken: contrary to Mainland China, Hong Kong’s mid-nineteenth to twentieth-century informal

613 Ibid.; Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 282. 614 Li, Shichao, “Junk-buyers as the Linkage between Waste Sources and Redemption Depots in Urban China: The Case of Wuhan,” 319. 615 Goldstein, The Remains of the Everyday,” 282. 616 Li, “Junk-buyers as the Linkage,” 321, 324. 617 Goldstein, “The Remains of the Everyday,” 277–278, 282–283. 287 recycling trade had always adapted steadily to Hong Kong’s developing economy and industrial production. As the trade happened discretely, it was not controlled very proactively. Despite certain hygienic concerns about scattered waste still expressed by critics—for example, the South China Morning Post stated in 1964 that [t]he scavengers operate on stairways, passageways, landings, and in front of blocks of flats, and the removal [of waste] is done with open baskets and various other containers which are invariably overloaded […]. Most of the people in question are habitual offenders and have no desire or intention to cooperate with the police [...].618

Occasional outcries by local officials that landfills had been ransacked (which contributed to the landfills’ instability and hygienic compromising) were also recorded. 619 Still, individual junk collectors remained Hong Kong’s main providers of recycling for most of the twentieth century. As the previously cited Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong (1974) states, [i]n Hong Kong nearly all household refuse is transferred from high rise dwellings to the vehicle collection points, by “private refuse collectors” […]. These self employed persons seek to improve their livelihood by salvaging items which are of value in a secondary materials market. A substantial quantity of potential waste material is therefore being salvaged either at the source, or at least prior to the stage where the wastes are deposited in the collection vehicle. From this point on the current techniques of collection and disposal, tend towards the production of heterogeneous mixtures, with a consequent decline on the opportunities for economic salvaging.620

In removing large amounts of trash from high-rise apartment buildings, the junk collectors also facilitated street cleaning. As previously mentioned, Hong Kong’s street cleaning services did not clear out waste from buildings. The more Hong Kong’s residential architecture grew vertically, the more residents felt temped to save themselves the trouble of having to take down the trash—if their building had no rubbish shoots—by simply throwing their garbage bags out of the window. This habit was so common that Hong Kong’s sanitary authorities placed great importance on it during the aforementioned “Keep Hong Kong Clean” campaign. Their efforts to control window dumping is best illustrated in a short educative

618 “Removal of Rubbish by Scavengers Should Be Controlled,” South China Morning Post, 20 May, 1964, 9. 619 HKRS-716-1-11. See also PRO, HKRS-438-1-33; HKRS-156-1-3395. 620 Ibid., 87–88. 288 documentary film produced in 1972 by the Information Services Department and shown during the campaign, entitled “Put it in the Bin.”621 But of course, the junk collectors’ contribution to recycling was far more significant. The authors of the Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong strongly approve of the waste collectors’ way of working, also pointing to the fact that future mechanization of waste management would endanger their success and ultimately also their livelihood. They even suggest that these individuals—who, in contrast to street cleaners, had no secure employment and earned too little compared to the huge service that they gave to society—should be supported by the government, not least for the added value that their collections of recyclables generated for the colonial economy. During the early 1970s, 170,000 tons of waste paper and 166,000 tons of scrap metal, along with other recyclables such as cotton and rubber were exported from Hong Kong on a yearly basis as the result of individual waste collection and manual waste sorting. The total daily revenue of individually collected recyclables around that time was estimated at 900 tons per day, and the total value of these materials at about 130 million dollars per annum.622

4.2. “Thrift and Hard Work”: A Close-up Look at Sustainability Knowledge Building in the Context of National Recycling

Chapter 2.3.1 has already briefly addressed the temporary shift of the interpretation of waste from ‘valueless’ to ‘valuable’ during the Revolutionary period. The setup of the Chinese national recycling system was accompanied by the “Increase Production and Practice Economy campaign (Zengchan jieyue yundong 增产节约运动)”.623 Initiated in 1949 and officially implemented as of the early 1950s, the original intention and layout to introduce a circular economy in a future Chinese communist state actually dated back even to the early years after the foundation of the Communist Party.624 Building on Mao Zedong’s famous call to “build the country through thrift and hard work (qinjian jianguo 勤俭建国)”, the campaign shaped especially the first decade of the People’s Republic. It was implemented through nationwide mass

621 “Put it in the Bin. Wei ji wei ren (Put it in the Bin. 為己為人),” Short Film, 1972. Public Records Office: Library Holdings, PRO 0039-HK/8/H(E). 622 Mansell Consultants Asia, Report on Disposal of Solid Wastes in Hong Kong, 88–89. 623 Li, “Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong.” 624 Xu and Wang, “Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue’ yu xin shiji ‘jieyue shehui’ jianshe,” 5. 289 activities to encourage productivity, production acceleration, and thrift even before the Great Leap Forward.625 Campaigns were only actively pursued until 1966, however, as the institutional infrastructure in the form of local recycling companies and supply and marketing cooperatives was already firmly in place, national recycling could continue during the Cultural Revolution, although with less vigor. Besides—as indicated already in the introduction—obviously following the Soviet example, the campaign was born out of real economic calamities: during the early years of the People’s Republic, commodity prices skyrocketed while the whole country was facing scarcity; in some cities price levels rose over 70 times over their original level. Many regions were severely underfinanced at the administrative level because of previous war expenses for the Korean War, especially in Northern China. When first launched, the thrift campaign was intended not only to counterbalance for resources that the country was missing for itself but also to support warfare production for the Korean War, and of course to increase general production, especially in the heavy and chemical industries and the energy sector, the rapid development of which was also an important reason why China was lacking so many resources. Economic stability was another concern. Through the introduction of recycled goods into the commodity markets, some urgent demands could be met, which led to a slow re- stabilization of prices.626 Besides the initial focus on war support, the campaign also aimed at reforming outdated production strategies during China’s industrial development phase, which were believed to be producing “serious waste (yanzhong langfei 严重浪费)” of resources and raw materials. This wastefulness was especially associated with cadres’ inexperience to efficiently implement directives of the planning economy at the local level. Further problems included an unhealthy disproportion between the labor and effort invested into production and actual productivity, empty capacities in production units as well as a lack of nationwide uniform quality standards.627 Through the intense recycling process, resources were indeed saved. According to statistics of the time—which may have been ‘cosmetically refined’ to a certain extent—, eight tons of lower-quality steel or 77 tons of pig iron could be produced from only one ton of average-quality waste steel. In many industries, the need for

625 Ibid., 5. 626 Ibid., 6. 627 Xu and Wang, “Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue yundong’ de youlai,” 12. 290 lower-quality metal could be satisfied for several years in a row through steel recycling. Fuels, such as coal and forest wood, could also be saved since less was needed for the making of lower-quality metal products. According to Li, this saved a lot of environmental pollution.628 However, although the preference for renewable resources over non-renewable ones can lead to positive environmental effects in theory, historians tend to view the campaign as well as the entire formal setup of the national recycling system as problematic in various ways and, due to severe structural weaknesses, as highly wasteful despite the original goal to economize on resources. For example, Xu and Wang point out that although massive amounts of material resources were recovered and circulated, verification of what the domestic industrial market really needed was insufficient.629 Despite the supply, serious shortcomings existed at factory level, as many industrial units were not even equipped to properly process certain recycled materials and could not keep up with the new possibilities that the recycled materials offered to the production process.630 Although some technological progress and wide-ranging initiatives to improve productivity, including updated production routines and refined economic administration and statistics, were initiated in reaction to these problems, Xu and Wang state that these were only surface-level improvements. They argue that the intrinsic problem of the recycling system was much more fundamental, as all focus was laid on fast production increase while the campaign’s secondary asset, cost reduction, was almost entirely neglected.631 Li explains that this was almost entirely due to planning mistakes. The most common problems concerned the efficient allocation and coordination of resource supply, working processes, workforce, transport capacities, and fuel. At the practical level, many enterprises were overburdened not only with the technical aspects of recycling but also with the administrative tasks required for it.632 Even the metal sector suffered great losses during the production process as the availability and quality of recycled products was almost never in proportion to the amounts and quality standards that were locally needed. While some industries were undersupplied with high-quality metals, others ended up having to use higher-quality metals for lower-quality purposes. Few industries had the

628 Li, “Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong,” 50. 629 Xu and Wang, “Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue’ yu xin shiji ‘jieyue shehui’ jianshe,” 8. 630 Li, “Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong,” 48. 631 Xu and Wang, “Jianguo chuqi ‘zengchan jieyue’ yu xin shiji ‘jieyue shehui’ jianshe,” 8. 632 Li, “Zengchan jieyue yundong de lailong,” 51. 291 consciousness and capacities for proper quality control, nor could they orient themselves at nation-wide quality standards for their products.633 As a result, many recycled products turned out as unusable and ended up in storage. The flaws of the recycling system were not openly and progressively discussed internally but obvious enough to become infamous beyond the borders of the People’s Republic. For example, probably informed by an insider, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post criticized the mechanisms of the recycling system in a 1962 article ironically entitled “Scavengers on the March”. According to its depiction, the mechanism of the planning economy did not allow for an even distribution of raw materials: many materials and goods were stored indefinitely. They either failed to serve a concrete purpose altogether or to be transported on time, thus spoiled before they could be processed. Sometimes, deliveries were denied because the current plan prescribed it, regardless of the actual need. Even though waste materials and products were the most important resource to counterbalance the general shortage of goods, recycling products were often of inferior quality, turning into waste faster than anyone expected.634 Under the above circumstances, national recycling in China has to be declared as ‘failed’. However, beyond the structural inhibiting factors, it is worthwhile to take another, closer look at the system’s biggest strength and potential, which is the transmission of recycling knowledge. As the following passages will show, not only recycling products circulated within the system but detailed knowledge about different recycling techniques as well, reaching even the remote areas of the young communist state. The following analysis will also address that parts of that knowledge was not newly developed. Instead, the communists could build on techniques and inventive ideas first developed during the Republican period, and transform and expand them according to the socialist economy’s needs. As the author of this thesis has observed during her research, recycling techniques have been constantly transmitted in twentieth-century China. Besides practical teachings, which are harder to trace back historically, publications have played an important role. In this context, the following sections will introduce a

633 Ibid., 51–52. 634 Yeh, James, “Scavengers on the March,” South China Morning Post, 17 June, 1962, 16. Of course, such statements have to be treated with certain caution. Firstly, the article does not clearly reveal its source of information. Secondly, in the context of counter-propaganda during the Cold War, there is a high possibility for exaggeration with regard to the socialist countries’ perceived ‘failures’. 292 publication genre that has been continuously available on the Chinese book market throughout the Republican and Revolutionary periods. Various copies still circulate in the contemporary second-hand book market and are sometimes available in full text databases such as the publication index database duxiu.com. In the absence of an official designation, these publications shall hence be called ‘recycling manuals’ after their purpose to serve as compendiums for many different ways to use waste as a raw material. Despite the different political backgrounds, volumes published during both the Republican and Revolutionary periods share a common basic principle: they teach about the value, recovery, and utilization of otherwise discarded items and materials from all areas of application, consumption, and production. While Republican publications tend to focus more on recycling in the household and teaching frugality techniques to children—probably portraying what frugality advocators among the urban elites had in mind—, publications of the Revolutionary period lay special emphasis on industrial recycling. In both cases, the books provide detailed, sometimes meticulously precise instructions for the transformation of waste items from a state of uselessness into new usability. The contemporary Chinese second-hand book market does not provide a large variety of publications that transport recycling knowledge, which seems to indicate that such publications were not more than a ‘niche genre’ with relatively low distribution. However, these publications were mostly meant for local distribution in urban centers. Circulation rates range from 1,000 copies in remote and sparsely populated areas such as Urumqi to up to 35,000 copies for certain publications in Shanghai, which suggests a selectively large local readership. Furthermore, their content presentation was relatively scientific and therefore addressed teachers, scholars, urban administrative staff and politicians rather than a broad and diverse readership, which further explains the relatively low circulation rates, which further raises their supposed impact proportionally. The instructions in them were meant for direct practical transmission: basically anybody who could read or memorize these instructions and could obtain a minimum of necessary equipment would have been or would still be able to follow them. The publications presented in the following analysis include a selection of recycling manuals dating from the mid-1930s to the late 1980s that allow for

293 conclusions on recycling knowledge-building, notions of sustainability and their connection to underlying political ideologies in historical retrospective. This analysis includes, in chronological order, the volumes Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai 廢物利用工藝新教材 [Waste Utilization—New Teaching Material On Handcrafting] (Shanghai, 1935);635 Feiwu liyong 廢物利用 [Waste Utilization] (Shanghai, 1941);636 Chengshi weisheng 城市衛生 [Urban Hygiene] (Beijing, 1953);637 Weishenme huishou liyong feipin 为什么回收利用废品 [Why Reclaim and Reuse Waste?] (Beijing, 1958);638 Feiwu bu fei 废物不废 [Waste Not Wasted] (Shanghai, 1958); 639 Feiwu bian huangjin. Shaonian kezhi huodong congshu 废物变黃金少年科技活动丛书 [Waste Turned to Gold. Science and Technology Activities for Adolescents Series] (Shanghai, 1960);640 Aiguo weisheng yundong huiji 爱国卫生运动经验汇集 [Patriotic Health Campaign Collection] vol. 3 (Beijing, 1963);641 Tantan feipin de huishou liyong 谈谈废品的回收利用 [Discussion of Waste Reclamation and Utilization] (Urumqi, 1963);642 Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu fei wuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie cihui bian 湖

北省武汉市旧废物资回收利用展览讲解词汇编 [Explanation of Vocabulary to an Exhibition on the Reclamation and Utilization of Old Goods and Waste in Wuhan, Hubei Province] (Wuhan, 1966);643 Feiwu zhanlan 废物展览 [Waste Exhibition ] (Xinhuizhen, Guangdong, 1977);644 and Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa 废物妙用 300 法 [300 Smart Ways to Use Waste] (Guangzhou, 1989).645

635 Gu Gengfu 顧賡甫, Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai 廢物利用工藝新教材, 1935. 636 Ma Yinliang 馬蔭良, Feiwu liyong 廢物利用, 1941. 637 Hua Youhua 華有華, Chengshi weisheng 城市衛生, 1953. 638 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di san shangye bu, Tuchan feipin caigou guanli ju 中华人民共和国第二商业部、土产废品采购管理局, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin 为什么回收利用废品, 1958. 639 Feiwu bu fei 废物不废, 1958. 640 Feiwu bian huangjin—Shaonian kezhi huodong congshu 废物变黃金少年科技活动丛书, 1960. 641 Zhongyang aiguo weisheng yundong weiyuanhui bangongshi, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo weishengbu fangyisi 中央爱国卫生运动委员会办公室、中华人民共和国卫生部卫生防疫司, Aiguo weisheng yundong jingyan huiji 爱国卫生运动经验汇集, 1960. 642 Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu shangyeting yanjiushi, 新疆维吾尔自治区商业厅研究室, ed. Tantan feipin de huishou liyong 谈谈废品的回收利用, 1963. 643 Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu fei wuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie cihui bian 湖北省武汉市旧废物资回收利用展览讲解词汇编, 1966. 644 Feiwu zhanlan 废物展览, 1977. 645 Li Jianfeng 李剑锋, Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa 废物妙用 300 法, 1989. 294 These manuals provide proof of the fact that many techniques were universal, at least for Mainland China. In the absence of representative primary material, this analysis lacks a Hong Kong perspective. This does not necessarily imply that the Chinese population of Hong Kong was oblivious of all techniques presented in the manuals. Assuming that recycling knowledge circulated through oral knowledge transfer and propaganda, it does, for example, not seem unlikely that a considerable percentage of mainland Chinese refugees seeking to install themselves in Hong Kong during the 1950s to 1970s were familiar with the recycling techniques practiced and propagated in their provinces of origin. It is also possible that older recycling traditions had already crossed the Hong Kong border at earlier stages or that comparable techniques had simultaneously developed in Hong Kong—not including, of course, recycling techniques that were specific to industrial recycling during the Revolutionary period on the Mainland.646

4.2.1. Definitions of Waste in the ‘Recycling Manuals’ Besides presenting an astonishing variety of ideas and techniques to reuse material that would usually end up as waste, most recycling manuals selected for this thesis begin with a definition of what “waste” is to their authors and explain why it is valuable. Beyond the changes of the political ideological context, these definitions do not seem to have changed much over time. Already the publications from the Republican period uniformly claim that the label “waste” should in fact only be reserved for a very limited amount of items. Just as the English term “waste” is semantically ambivalent and describes both a worthless item that is discarded (an equivalent in Chinese being, for example, feiwu 废物) and inappropriate “wastage” (chin. langfei 浪费) of a valuable, definitions of the nature of waste in the recycling manuals imply considerations on extravagance. The publications reveal that the definition of waste as a valuable is, in the Chinese context, not a product of socialist thought and production logic but originates from the Republican era, in line with the ideal of frugality and resourcefulness that some urban elitist circles shared and that also formed a core pillar of the New

646 Through means of an oral history approach, the abovementioned assumptions concerning Hong Kong should be relativized in future research. Due to the methodological scope of this thesis, they remain hypothetical at this point. 295 Life movement’s ideology. The preface to Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai (1935), the earliest of publications analyzed here, supports this assumption: 宇宙間，森羅萬象，無不各得其用，[…] 其有目之為無用者，非真無用也，殆未明用之之道，或用之而未得其方也。[…] 知乎此，則牛溲馬勃，竹層木頭，皆可設法以利用之；昧乎此，鮮有不暴殄天物者也。 In the universe, which embraces all the things there are in the world, there is nothing that could not be put to a use. […] There are things we regard as useless, but they are not truly useless. We are just not aware of the ways to use them, or we do use them without having the right way [to do it]. If we are aware of this, we can set up regulations to use all scraps like bamboo fibers and wood; if we remain unaware, there will be a lot of reckless wastage of natural resources.647

It is no surprise that recycling manuals from the Revolutionary period do not deviate from this definition. Although they, expectably, do not explicitly admit that Republican thinking on the topic preceded socialist approaches, they do express consciousness of a ‘long-term affiliation’ of the Chinese civilization with recycling. The volume Weishenme huishou liyong feiwu (1958), for example, begins with the quotation of a traditional proverb derived from the daoist classic Daodejing, “pu tian zhi xia, wu bi you yong 普天之下，物必有用 (all things in the world are useful by all means)”. The volume describes “waste” generally as something that has turned from new to old, broken, or lost quality; but at a closer look, it is its flexibility to fulfill different purposes that decides whether it falls into a ‘useless’ or a ‘useful’ category.648 A similar definition is given in Tantan feipin de huishou liyong (1963): waste items (feipin 废品) are “goods that have lost their usable value” (yijing sangshi shiyong jiazhi de wupin 已经丧失使用价值的物品). Consequently, there are neglected, overlooked, and discarded— wrongfully so, as they may serve entirely new purposes if collected in large amounts.649 The book Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu fei wuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie cihui bian (1966), a companion to a ‘revolutionary’ recycling exhibition, goes another step further, stating that waste only really becomes waste if people treat it as such: 废旧物资遍布城乡，它是人们生产、生活的消耗、消费过程中还没有完全丧失使用价值的物品，如果任其流散 […]，就将成为真正的废品。 Waste and old stuff is found everywhere in cities and villages. They are goods that have not fully lost their useful value in the process of people

647 Gu, Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai, i. 648 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er shangye bu, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin, 5. 649 Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu shangyeting yanjiushi, Tantan feipin de huishou liyong. 296 producing, living, and consuming. If we allow them to scatter about, they will truly become waste.650

Finally, even in the latest recycling manual from the collection presented here, Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa (published in 1989), “waste” is still defined as a mental construction that can be ‘overcome’ through recycling: 什么是废物？很难给出一个确切的定义，但在人们的头脑中，“废物” 这个概念总还是存在的。随着科学技术的发展和人们的反复实践，许多过去被认为是废物的东西，逐步地得到了利用，成为为人们服务的有用之物，有些利用项目甚至可以说是“变废为宝”。 What is waste? It is difficult to come along with a precise definition, but in people’s minds the concept of “waste” still exists. In consequence of the development of science and technology and the practices that people are used to, a lot of things that in the past have been believed to be waste have been put to use step by step and become useful items that serve people. Some reused items have reached a point where you can say that “waste has been turned into treasure”.651

The common guiding idea of all recycling manuals is that “waste”—in the sense of “useless matter”—does not really exist. Although only the communist state has gone so far as to officially abolish ‘waste’ as a category of fallouts from the value chain, the manuals from the Republican period convey the same basic idea. They promote an alternative interpretation, which suggests that literally all discarded items have the potential to serve as a resource. According to the rhetoric used in the manuals, it is not the items themselves but everyone’s skill and creativity that determines their reusability. Waste items are revived—or, in other words, saved from ‘wastage’—before they actually shift into a waste category. Paradoxically, the manuals still label them as “waste” (feipin or feiwu). Bound by the ideology that useless materials do not exist, none of the manuals address the problem that in every household and every economy, there exist items that are broken beyond repair and materials that cannot be allocated anywhere to serve as raw materials. A definition of a category of ‘waste’ that still remains after all recycling attempts have been in vain is missing. Zsuzsa Gille has observed that an object’s transition into the trash category is not solely determined by distinguishing throwaway matter from useful matter, but

650 Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu fei wuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie cihui bian, 1966, 1. 651 Li, Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa. Bian fei wei bao 变废为宝 was a widely used slogan which frequently appears in the context of frugality campaigns and recycling initiatives during the late communist phase. 297 that a “set of multiple criteria of utility” can be applied, which implies that already one single secondary utility that is ascribed to an item after it has failed to fulfill its original purpose may save an item’s value, be it practical or sentimental.652 The same conviction is conveyed already in the earlier recycling manuals. But while Gille writes about socialist Hungary, in the Chinese case the same idea can be traced back to the Republican period. Even the link to national production is made prior to the communist phase. The preface of Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai (1935), for example, calls to the role of teachers to spread knowledge about waste utilization as an economic resource: 吾以為利用廢物，尤關重要，在我國生產落後情形之下，教界人士，亟須竭力倡導，以挽狂瀾。 I think the use of waste is of utmost importance. Under the circumstances of China’s backwardness in production, learned teachers urgently need to do their best to make a start and turn the tide [i.e., avoid wastage].653

Feiwu liyong (1941) also refers explicitly to the role of waste for national production goals. Not only does it describe techniques to transform various kinds of used, broken, or dilapidated items from both private households and small manufactures into new useful tools, but it also presents various approaches to large-scale waste utilization that the author has observed in Western industrialized countries, and which he advises his compatriots to imitate. He points out that a shift towards recycling that he has observed in the West stands in direct context to material scarcity during the Second World War—a time when capitalist value chains were ruptured and replaced by a temporary, partial ‘fallback’ into the characteristics of the traditional recycling society.654 He translates inspirations drawn from this context into generalized suggestions for China, which he identifies to be in a constant state of resource scarcity that is comparable to the European situation during the World War. Feiwu liyong particularly investigates the German case, observing how Germany sought to relieve its dependency on imports through various attempts to circulate waste materials, for example, by replacing leather with fish skin, making new paper from waste paper, cleansing industrial waste oil for reutilization, or revolutionizing the food industry by chemically drawing nutrient supplements and crystal sugar from wood scraps. In

652 Gille, From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History, 21. 653 Gu, Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai, 1. 654 Cf., for example, Cooper, “Challenging the ‘Refuse Revolution’,” and Strasser, Waste and Want, for comparable observations during the World War I and II. 298 the context of the war, even countries with agricultural abundance, such as the USA, are observed to have been turning their harvest residues into raw materials, such as plant coal, acids, or fibers.655

4.2.2. Long-term Adaptations of Recycling Knowledge and Ideology The content presented in the recycling manuals distinguishes four main fields of application: uses of waste for the individual, the household, the workshop, and the industry. Each volume covers one or two of the following topics: 1) handcrafts— repairing broken utensils, creating new tools, or crafting for pleasure (applied by an individual within the household or in workshops); 2) economizing in the household and the workshop—replacing tools, introducing new utensils, or replacing food and animal fodder; 3) raw materials for workshops and industries—deriving chemical basic substances from waste materials, supplying scraps as raw material, and enhancing agricultural productivity through the use of organic waste as fertilizer; and 4) improving urban and personal hygiene by finding new purposes for urban waste. Besides being intended for personal, administrative or general scientific education, several volumes originating from the Revolutionary period also transport a political ideology. Investigating the books in detail, a gradual shift from the private individual to state representatives as the main readership can be observed over the transition from the Republican to the socialist system, although personal use of the displayed techniques is never fully excluded even beyond 1949. The aforementioned publication Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai (1935) gives instructions specifically for school teachers: it presents crafting techniques on the basis of waste materials which are supposed to train young students in resourcefulness, frugality mindset, and manual skills. Many crafts have no other function than to create pleasure during the crafting process or to be used as toys or decoration while others serve as simple utensils of everyday usage that save expenses for a new item. The main goal is to teach about the variability of free materials found in and around the household and the ability to avoid having to buy expensive utensils for—to use contemporary language on this occasion—‘upcycling’ projects of all kinds. The selection of presented techniques includes, for example, using rice straw and other grass-like material to make ropes, baskets, mats, or straw sandals; making toys and decorative elements

655 Ma, Feiwu liyong, 97–101. 299 from fruit stones; making furniture from large plant scraps; finishing animal toys and dolls from real animal hair or making fake moustaches from it; making clothes from the fibers of hemp scraps; making stuffing for clothes from cotton scraps; or making ladles and containers from bottle gourds.656 The 1941 volume Feiwu liyong also provides craft ideas, however, it entirely skips any possible pleasurable aspects of the crafting process and focuses entirely on ‘meaningful’ utensils, many of which are applicable in small workshops. The great variety of ‘upcycling’ methods presented shows a creativity that is quite out of the ordinary and vividly depicts the resourcefulness that already Dong or Dikötter have identified for Late Qing and Republican recycling ideas: seemingly random items like bottle lids, glass bottles, old oil drums, parts of old gramophones, cartridges of gun bullets, old umbrellas, old car parts, old iron and scrap steel, old rainclothes, as well as plant material and animal parts, to name only a short selection, are entirely reinvented in the most unconventional ways to make cleaning utensils, lamps, insect traps and repellents, stoves, animal cages, shelves, musical instruments, tools for handcrafts, utensils to catch animals and prepare them for cooking, laundry hangers, toys, flower pots, primitive printing machines, feeding troughs for domestic animals, and much more. Like the previous publication, this book addresses the individual recycler, since all instructions, despite being very technical and sometimes quite complex, can easily be followed through by a single person.657 As of the 1950s, the recycling manuals no longer present techniques that apply specifically to individual recyclers, but shift the focus to wider benefits for the urban community. Intended recycling processes take on a far larger scale and are embedded into the socialist recycling scheme that intends to reuse each and every type of waste that accumulates in the urban environment for communal production goals. The volume Chengshi weisheng (1953) focuses on the fertilizing properties of urban waste—which includes both household waste and waste water (wushui 污水)—, the solid particles in the latter of which could be screened out and fermented along with organic solid wastes while the liquid was cleansed for other purposes. 658 During the following years, the extension, systematization, and ideological manifestation of the national recycling scheme is

656 Gu, Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai, 6, 19, 21, 24–25, 36–37, 50–51, 63–64, 69–69, 88. 657 Ma, Feiwu liyong. 658 Hua, Chengshi weisheng, 13–16, 20. 300 reflected in the recycling manuals. While the national campaign for scrap iron donations to boost national steel production during the Great Leap Forward is well-known—mostly for the “backyard furnaces” (tufa liangang 土法炼钢), which deprived communal households of their much-needed metal utensils—, less attention has been paid to other recycling initiatives that were integrated into the national recycling scheme during these years. Besides scrap metal, highly requested categories of raw material included wastes from the chemical industry; cloth rags and all kinds of waste fibre to generate new fibre from; animal hair and feathers to create all kinds of fillings; bones that could be transformed into fertilizer, glue, building material, or motor fuel; waste paper to create new paper from; waste rubber to save raw rubber; and glass.659 The publication Weishenme huishou liyong feipin (1958) is the earliest of a number of recycling manuals that are no longer published by an individual author but already by a state institution (in this case, the national Ministry of Commerce and Bureau for Purchase and Administration of Local Products and Waste). In the book’s narrative the Communist Party is placed at the center of all recycling initiatives and depicted as a ‘liberator’ from the previous system of ‘wastefulness’ associated with the Republican regime (an assumption, which we already know from previous observations, is not accurate): 过去由于受旧的赎回制度的束缚，使群众性的废物利用没有能够充分发展。 As a system of rebuying collected wastes was fettered in the past, mass- scale waste utilization has been inhibited from fully developing.660

The pronounced goals are to enhance production funds and practice frugality (jieyue 节约) on both household and national level to benefit the collective and help build socialism. The stressed characteristics of the new recycling initiative are its mass character (qunzhongxing 群众性), its long-term conception, and the establishment of state-run supply and marketing cooperatives for waste and old goods.661 Centralized recycling was organized according to the following pattern: 1) a company would either send all of its production waste to its own integrate recycling business that would reprocess the material, or 2) several companies would jointly deliver their collected waste (separated by type) to an external

659 Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu shangyeting yanjiushi, Tantan feipin de huishou liyong. 660 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er shangyebu, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin, 33. 661 Ibid., 34, 39–40, 40–46. 301 recycling business. Generally, all companies would be connected to a large network of recycling businesses which would, in turn, re-deliver to the production companies; 3) local residential communities would found their own small recycling points where collected valuables from household and street waste were either processed and/or sorted for supply to the recycling businesses.662 All danwei and individuals who handed in their collected waste were rewarded according to a centrally fixed price list that included literally all types of waste that existed. Pricing was tricky, however, as the price range had to be as low as possible to save costs but high enough to encourage peoples’ willingness to contribute to the system.663 Although the Great Leap Forward represented the peak of institutionalized recycling campaigning, the general scheme was continued beyond the 1960s. The nationwide recycling spirit culturally rehearsed through common slogans such as “wuyong bian youyong, yi yong bian duoyong, feijiu bian zhanxin 无用变有用，

一用变多用，废旧变崭新 [turn the useless into something useful, things used once into things used multiple times, and wornout things into brand-new things]”; or Mao Zedong’s quotation “qinjian jiaguo 勤俭建国 [build the country through hard work and thrift];664 and even a propaganda song: 旧社会把人欺，废品分文都不值，共产党领导好，各种废物变财宝，人人加工增收入，废品无用变多用，多给工业送原料，建设国家乐融融。 In the old society, people were taken advantage of, and scraps were not worth a single penny. But the Party’s leadership is great, and all sorts of waste are turned into valuables. Everybody processes [materials] to increase their income and turns waste and useless items into items used multiple times. Send more raw materials to the industry to build a happy and harmonious country!665

662 Cf. Läpple, Fang, “Abfall- und kreislaufwirtschaftlicher Transformationsprozess in Deutschland und in China: Analyse – Vergleich – Übertragbarkeit,” 104. 663 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er shangye bu, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin, 50; Xinjiang Weiwu’er zizhiqu shangyeting yanjiushi, Tantan feipin de huishou liyong, 6–9. 664 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er shangye bu, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin, 5; Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu feiwuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie, 1. Mao Zedong’s full quotation reads: “要使我国富强起来，需要几十年艰苦奋斗的时间，其中包括执行厉行节约，反对浪费，这样一个勤俭建设的方针。[If we want our country to become prosperous and strong, we have to work diligently despite the difficulties for a few decades. This also includes the guiding principle to practice strict economy and combatting extravagance to build our country through hard work and thrift.]” 665 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo di er shangye bu, Weishenme huishou liyong feipin, 33. 302 Although much vigor was lost during the Cultural Revolution, the scheme was revived after Mao Zedong’s death, as a publication from 1977, entiled Feiwu zhanlan (neirong jieshao) reveals. It is a companion to the reopening of a travelling recycling exhibition that had been first launched in 1968 in Xinhuizhen 新会镇, Guangdong province. Recycling exhibitions are referred to in several of the abovementioned recycling manuals as they represented an important means to educate the public about the Party’s recycling goals. In Xinhuizhen, the curators of the exhibition tried to revive recycling knowledge that was common a decade earlier, while they simultaneously commemorated an honorary visit of the 1968 exhibition by then-premier Zhou Enlai, whose encouraging praise is revived in the exhibition companion as a motivation to continue the recycling scheme under a new government and the directives of Deng Xiaoping’s “Four Modernizations (si ge xiandaihua 四个现代化)”.666 Although exhibitions like this were propaganda events, they reflected the intention to place knowledge transmission and development into the focus of public attention. Ultimately, this intention ended up having a stronger influence than could be expected, given the fact that at the time, the socialist economy was already at the verge of being fundamentally transformed. It is not self-evident that with the gradual reopening of markets, a public interest in former recycling techniques would prevail. Yet, a continuance of exactly such an interest is reflected in the latest recycling manual investigated here, which already belongs into the Deng Xiaoping era: Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa was published in 1989 and literally draws from the entire repertoire of twentieth century Chinese recycling practices as it presents partly familiar-looking, partly new and unconventional ways to recycle within the single household, conveying with a proud undertone that smart ways to economize within the household could save huge amounts of running costs. Techniques presented include, for example, the application of kitchen waste to create natural remedies for better health of both humans and domestic animals, making food and animal fodder from leftovers, using composted waste as fertilizer, making daily utensils from waste items, and repairing old utensils, renewing them or giving them new purpose, along with some other, highly specialized ways to recycle goods and materials that do not fit

666 Feiwu zhanlan. Deng’s “Four Modernizations” were aimed at economic, strategic and material advancements in the areas of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. 303 into the above categories. Instructions are kept very short and simple to make them easy to follow for the single individual. Author Li Jianfeng claims to have researched “all the related material” on waste utilization he was able to find in order to “bring proper benefit to the establishment of the Four Modernizations of socialism […] [,] help the masses save expenses and profit more […] [and] reduce waste accumulation, which helps clean up the environment.”667 As this book focuses, again, on household recycling, it probably also draws inspiration from former Republican techniques. This shows that not only parts of the Chinese socialist recycling ideology but a longer cultural history of recycling survived throughout the twentieth century. The “300 Ways” present an astonishing richness that give recycling a purpose for each interested individual’s very own ends. The mentioning of environmental concerns, which the author intends to counterbalance through his encouragement to recycle, is explicitly new and probably a result of the increased consciousness for environmental problems that had developed during the 1980s. The underlying ideology of strengthening the Chinese economy through recycling is apparently still dominant, but the focus to has shifted back from the use of waste as industrial raw material to an approach of economization where waste is used as a replacement for more expensive goods and simply helps saving resources. This shift of interpretation of the function of recycling is very similar to the case of late-socialist Hungary as Gille describes it. She analyses in detail how in the attempt to consolidate the Hungarian national economy as of the mid-1970s, several reforms on national waste management brought change to the interpretation of the function of recycling. The recycling ideology shifted from the political to the economic realm; instead of being regarded as additional raw material for the industry, waste was now supposed to help the entire nation economize and replace goods and raw materials even in everyday life. 668 Consequently, this immediately made recycling more of a potentially individual concern, as such an approach was applicable by the single household and no longer exclusively served national goals. In the space between the state and the individual household, new opportunities opened up: as indicated both in the introduction and in the previous chapter, in the case of post-socialist

667 Li, Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa, 1–2. 668 Gille, From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History, 113–118. 304 China this space was filled by the junk-buyers who met exactly the new economy’s demand with their tireless effort. An adjacent assumption to Gille’s observation of the described ideological shift in the late- or post-socialist recycling regime would be that the transforming economies of different post-socialist countries may have experienced similar developments in the interpretation of the function of recycling, due to the comparable challenges that their national economies faced after the markets were re-opened. As a matter of fact, it would be worthwhile to comparatively explore the significance of recycling and development of recycling knowledge transmission in post-socialist China and various countries of the former Eastern bloc as well as knowledge flows between those countries, both during their socialist phases and after. Gille herself stresses the fact that “more research is needed to analyze how the production, representation, and the politics of waste all leech across national borders”.669 After all, ‘recycling knowledge’ is nothing that is exclusive to a single country or region; it is fluid and develops with societal, political, and cultural change. For the Chinese case, regardless of the scope of possible outside influence, the stability of various different approaches to recycling and the accumulation of knowledge over long periods of time is remarkable, even though problems to integrate the knowledge with the plan inhibited a successful fulfillment of the idea of a recycling state. Since parts of that long-built knowledge have gone dormant with the rise of consumerism, its recovery could become ever the more relevant for future problem-solving approaches to waste management in China. A thorough investigation of present- day frugality discourse and resource consciousness that draws from early- to late twentieth century recycling knowledge is surely among the topics that deserve in- depth exploration in future research.

669 Gille, Zsuzsa, “Actor Networks, Modes of Production, and Waste Regimes: Reassembling the Macro-social,” 1062. 305 Part II: Summary

Chapters 3 and 4 have taken a close-up look at the major pollution-causing as well as sustainability-supporting mechanisms in twentieth-century waste management in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. While reasons for waste pollution are always complex and often cannot be singled down to a universal cause, they frequently involve difficulties in the long-term planning of waste management and in the application of technological remedies that are suitable for the local requirements. Although twentieth-century Shanghai and Chengdu’s political and economic path was very different from Hong Kong’s, the local ways of adjusting to changes in waste production—from mainly organic household waste to higher amounts of toxic industrial wastes—were lacking flexible, future-oriented adaptability and a proportional expansion and diversification of industrialized waste management technology in all three cases. In combination with weak environmental law and both governments’ determination to put economic success first, serious waste pollution was almost impossible to avoid. As a result of the historical events described in this part of the thesis, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong ended up with waste management systems that were too incomplex to combat pollution and handle late and post-twentieth century mass waste accumulation—as caused by high consumption levels and/or high industrial output—with sufficient control. Interestingly, a high degree of pollution developed regardless of the respective political and economic background system. In retrospective, the case of colonial Hong Kong appears especially unfortunate since its financial means and overall developmental status would have allowed for a timely, more holistic adaptation to rising waste production and increased waste pollution that could have included both efficient planning and management as well as advanced technology. However, an environmentally safer approach to waste management was sacrificed to the Colony’s liberalist growth paradigm. Shanghai and Chengdu, on the other hand, started out with a developmental delay that was responsible for certain technological deficits. Other structural weaknesses added to the technological shortcomings, such as local cadres’ inexperience in the long-term planning of industrial waste management, especially in the case of Shanghai. It is just as unfortunate, however, that Mainland China’s theoretically most sophisticated waste management technology, the national recycling system, failed in practice due to ideological dogma—such as the tendency to deny the

306 existence of ‘waste’ altogether—and unrealistic future planning. In both Mainland China and Hong Kong, recycling could have been the key to landfill pressure relief; instead, it only played a background role in Hong Kong and became entangled in its own systemic weaknesses in Mainland China. Yet, Chinese historical recycling systems still stand out as they have evoked important, long-living impulses for sustainability throughout the twentieth century. Chapter 4 has taken a close look at holders of recycling knowledge and the importance of recycling knowledge transmission, and finds that there was a more or less uninterrupted process of knowledge building that permeated successive political systems and their system-dependent market conditions. Flows of recycling knowledge have been so strong and influential that even late- twentieth century China could probably still be called a ‘recycling society’. The term usually describes pre- or proto-industrial societies that rely on recycling because of high poverty levels and resource scarcity.670 In late twentieth-century Mainland China, advanced industrialization and beginning consumerism coexisted and merged with a prevailing high readiness—and need—to recycle. This unique combination of resource allocation and use made Mainland China’s relationship to waste much more complex than Hong Kong’s. It also resulted in a growing challenge to efficiently navigate the complexity; various publications on the Chinese recycling sector’s recent developments, as cited in chapter 4 and in the Introduction, have pointed out the difficulties and conflicts that emerged with the struggle to standardize and control the use of recycled resources in Chinese industries. Still, the knowledge built in and through the experience of different large-scale recycling systems in China is a strong asset for future, possibly more integrative approaches to waste management. As long as holders of recycling knowledge are still living, in Mainland China as well as in Hong Kong, their long- term experience could be strategically used in future circular economy approaches.

670 Cf. Strasser, 1999; Cooper, 2008. 307 Conclusion

This thesis is the first full-length study to have investigated the history of waste management in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong during the twentieth century from a longue-durée perspective. It is a groundwork study that has focused especially on answering questions about the basic structures, practices and knowledge backgrounds that determined the Chinese historical relationship with urban waste management as well as local urban societies’ own changing interpretations of this relationship over time. In addressing these questions, this thesis has laid a broad basis for future studies that might aim, for example, at a deeper analysis of the Chinese cultural relationship to waste, comparisons with other Chinese case studies beyond the ones discussed in this thesis, or the integration of the Chinese case into a global comparison of different historical relationships to waste. As a major pollutant and contributing factor to global climate change, waste is not only a topic of national but also of international concern. Despite the commitment to sustainable development that is expressed in the People’s Republic’s goals concerning the building of a “harmonious society” since the mid-2000s, the Communist Party’s relationship with nature remains one of conqueror-versus-enemy. As climate change progresses, the persistence of waste problems in China risks causing an unpredictable exacerbation of already future environmental problems.

Present Implications of Historical Waste Pollution The role waste plays in an urban society’s relationship with the environment lies in its close interrelation with consumer culture, industrial production, population growth, urbanization, and resource management. As the society’s perception of and identification with this relationship is strongly influenced by political culture and national identity, both of which usually build up over longer periods of time, the historical lens is an ideal tool through which to explore and understand the development of a society’s relationship to nature and environmental problems from a long-term perspective. Through the longue-durée perspective taken in this thesis, processes of knowledge-building have been made visible and learned practice patterns in the twentieth-century Chinese relationship with waste have

308 been identified as prerequisites to China’s present-day capacities to deal with mass waste accumulations and waste pollution. Situated at an interface between social and environmental history, this study has investigated the topic from the perspectives of the social construction of waste, the institutional and practical organization of waste management, its legal background, and the application of different waste management technologies. Further perspectives are the historical interaction of waste and the local natural environment, the urban societies’ engagement with environmental change induced by waste pollution as well as notions of sustainable waste management as manifested in everyday and political culture. Besides making a contribution to the field of Chinese history, this thesis also seeks to counterbalance the predominance of ‘Western-centric’ studies that hitherto make up for the major part of the field of global waste history. Through the comprehensive study of primary sources from local archives of all three cities (Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu), paired with an in-depth analysis of evidence from historical newspapers, this thesis has found that waste pollution in China is not to be seen merely as a side effect of accelerated development during the past few decades but that its roots go back much further into the past, precisely, to the beginning of the twentieth century. Around this time, urbanization in all three cities had reached a critical point beyond which the usual daily waste accumulations could no longer be absorbed by traditional management systems and the natural environment without fundamental, large- scale systematic interventions by the municipal governments. In the attempt to combat waste pollution, important achievements were made during the decades that followed. In Shanghai and Chengdu in particular, the major achievements made were closely connected with overarching political programs concerning the development of the public health sector, which had just begun to systematically identify environmental hygiene as a crucial prerequisite for human health. Such political programs, however, were dependent from the leading ideology of the national government in power, and thus were sensitive to changes in ideology and government. Certainly, each successive national government was able to build on the work of its predecessors. The great efforts made during the Republican era to establish nationwide standards for environmental hygiene and to engage entire urban populations in consciousness-raising campaigns against waste pollution are especially noteworthy; these strategies formed an important basis that later

309 enabled the Communist Party of China to gain better control over people’s random dumping habits and over the removal of waste from the urban sphere. Certainly, various unsolved problems concerning waste management were also passed on from one political system to the next in Shanghai and Chengdu. On the one hand, these concerned especially the on-going and exacerbating contamination of the natural environment through insufficient control over waste dumping, with a particularly severe effect on local freshwater and groundwater supplies. On the other hand, the changes of the national political system contributed to an incomplete development of the local waste management sectors. By the mid-twentieth century, the absorption capacities of the local ecosystems had already been stretched to their maximum for several decades. At the same time, in relation to both cities’ general development status, the industrialization of waste treatment had remained incomplete. This resulted in a lack of systemic resources to handle the increasingly large mass waste accumulations of the mid- to late twentieth century, when both cities experienced accelerated population growth as well as an expansion of the industrial sector. During the Mao era, these problems could not be resolved; they continued to constitute a major challenge during the post-Mao decades when China had just begun to recover and thrive economically. To a certain degree, the developments described above applied for colonial Hong Kong as well. Although the colonial government pursued a gradual development of its waste management sector throughout the first half of the twentieth century, its decision against an early industrialization of waste management led to a loss of control over waste pollution between the 1950s and the 1980s. Consequently, at the time of the handover in 1997, the new government of Hong Kong S.A.R. inherited multiple unsolved problems surrounding waste management. These were especially critical since Hong Kong, having developed one of the highest per capita waste production rates of the world by this time and located on a total surface of only 1,104 square kilometers, has had increasingly limited space for waste disposal and treatment since the late 1960s. Despite the historical relationship with waste pollution being a problematic one in all three cities, this thesis has also demonstrated that twentieth-century Chinese urban culture also had a strong relationship with waste as a resource.

310 During the first half of the twentieth century, much of this relationship played out in the informal sector, however, it was integrated into the national recycling system under communist rule in Mainland China. Certainly, the efficiency of the national recycling system was severely compromised by the modalities of the planning economy. Still, this thesis argues that the knowledge built during the daily practical implementation of the recycling economy, as well as its successful engagement of already existing frugality discourses, gives Chinese urban societies a special set of experiences in their historically developed cultural relationship to waste. These experiences could be significant for possible future, more sustainable waste management approaches that seek to actively integrate the entire society.

The Comparability of Locally Specific Historical Problem Structures This thesis has followed its three case studies chronologically through time, exploring different thematic blocks: institutions, legal standards, and organizational structures behind waste management, the practical execution of waste collection, the integration of the public into the maintenance of clean cities, the application of technology, the local industrialization of waste treatment, and recycling. The comparison has aimed especially at distinguishing between universal underlying structures that formed in all three cities—such as historically manifested recycling practices—and temporary structures introduced under the supervision of the local governments—for example, a temporary preference for waste management education through cleanup campaigns. As the results of this investigation suggest, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hong Kong were comparable in many aspects during the first half of the twentieth century, while the stark political and economic diversion after 1949 led to very different approaches in waste management between the 1950s and 1970s. This thesis argues that it is not only the level of efficiency upon which historical structures for waste management need to be evaluated but also the long-term environmental impact of these structures; as has been shown, various unsolved problems of the past predetermined newly emerging problems and contributed to a gradual deterioration of the environment. Theoretical objectives towards waste management at the planning level and their practical implementation were not always aligned, and any existing

311 alignment was occasionally compromised by unforeseen or neglected environmental problems caused by waste pollution. This discrepancy led to various historically persistent problem structures: in Shanghai and Chengdu in particular, incongruences between national and local-level decision-making and policy implementation as well as changes of government led to repeated interruption of already achieved standards. In all three cities, major challenges were caused by incomplete or delayed institution building, rapid population increase, inconsistencies in local-level governance strategies as well as a long- term neglect of waste pollution. Although Shanghai and Hong Kong due to their size and population density, were the most polluted, the case of Chengdu shows that major structural problems of the public health sector led to a serious degree of waste pollution also in this much smaller city. Besides having connected the history of waste management in China to the history of the Chinese public health sector and urban public administration, chapter 1 has focused on two aspects in particular, namely the role of rule of law for the legal regulation of waste management and the practical organization of waste collection and disposal. The development of rule of law, as the most basic precondition for the setting of sanitary standards, has been especially decisive for waste management in Mainland China, where laws were established in a local, experimental fashion rather than as uniform, nation-wide standards. While the lack of centralization on the Mainland resulted in a general unreliability of cleanliness standards and practices of waste removal, the comparison of Shanghai and Chengdu with colonial Hong Kong shows that centralized lawmaking was not automatically a guarantor for successful waste management; ultimately, Hong Kong’s problem was not a fluidity of the law but simply the wrong priorities in lawmaking. Judging from the high degree of waste pollution all three cities reached by the late twentieth century, it does not seem to have mattered much whether the local waste administration was ‘Westernized’ or had developed within a dominantly Chinese environment only. In both cases, countermeasures against pollution were held up by other pressing problems of public governance, rigid bureaucracies, a lack of environmental awareness and difficulties to identify waste accumulation as one of the greatest challenging factors in quickly urbanizing local societies. Thus, this thesis argues that the historical influence of ‘Western’ waste management strategies in Chinese cities provided some helpful impulses for better legal

312 standards on pollution prevention and a more efficient organization of waste removal, but offered no remedies once pollution had already transgressed the tolerance limits of the local natural environments. Although waste pollution was acknowledged rather late in both Mainland China and Hong Kong, impulses from the West did play a crucial role as catalysts for improvements in local environmental lawmaking during the final decades of the twentieth century. Based on the insights into the locally dominant regulatory frameworks for municipal waste management gained in chapter 1, chapter 2 has investigated their practical implementation. As has been shown, the local approach to the removal of waste from the public sphere had different characteristics. Its success depended on different local levels of organizational efficiency, the local political culture, and specific environmental or geographical factors. As has been demonstrated, the practical level brought with it its own locally specific challenges that caused difficulties in all three cities, especially as waste production accelerated during the second half of the twentieth century. An important aspect of the investigation has been a critical assessment of the manifestation of ‘low-tech’ versus ‘high-tech’ elements in local waste management. Low-tech elements included the simple, preindustrial and resource-conscious approaches that existed in Mainland China already before the twentieth century, prevailed beyond 1949 and were applicable without much technological innovation; the cases of the traditional fertilizer system and national recycling under socialism show how high standards of sustainability were set mainly on the organizational level—certainly, not without some technological support—, through the recirculation of raw materials. On the other hand, high-tech waste management strategies included especially the gradual industrialization of waste treatment, which was preceded by a centralization and rationalization of coordination processes, efficiency thinking and the incentive to make waste ‘disappear’ through industrialized processing. Both jindai Shanghai and colonial Hong Kong applied high-tech approaches, although their development remained incomplete. Although the low-tech approaches had a certain ‘traditionalist’ appeal to them, they were, of course, not necessarily less ‘modern’ than the high-tech approaches. Especially with regard to the aspect of compatibility with the natural environment, the historical low-tech approaches have much more in common with contemporary ideas of the circular economy than the typical technology-based

313 approaches, which usually follow a linear direction (production–consumption– disposal) and result in a wastage of resources. Although the causes of waste pollution in all three cities can partially be traced back to a combination of technological underdevelopment, misguided assumptions concerning the danger of discarded materials, planning mistakes and dominant economic goals that outweighed environmental goals, this thesis has also pointed out that urban waste management, regardless of the location, is a matter of great complexity, which ultimately awaits the development of a truly holistic concept until the present day. Since both the circular redistribution and industrialized processing of waste have their own strengths, a combination of both approaches should undeniably be part of future waste management strategies, in China as much as anywhere else. In the quest for such future strategies at the global level, the three case studies presented in this thesis are representative of past experiments with different local waste management systems in China, which can be assessed as historically manifested experience for global reference. The basic questions that challenged public administrators in twentieth-century Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, were universal and can and should still be asked at any given time and in any given society today: how much should societies care about waste production? Are different societies allocating the necessary amount of resources to tackle waste pollution? Are the responsible administrative systems equipped with the legal, organizational and technological tools to actually pursue this goal? Is the practical organization of waste management in tune with legal prescriptions? Is the public sufficiently educated and how can it be of support? Are there mechanisms in place to hold a government accountable for any lack of progress or for excess pollution? As the investigated examples have shown, mere ‘concern’ expressed by the different local governments—even if expressed honestly—about these issues at different points in time did not automatically lead to a successful introduction of working solutions. In all three cities, a persistent neglect of waste pollution caused the local waste management systems to develop a growing susceptibility to pressure as the local natural environments became affected by increasing waste production over time. Besides having discussed these problems, chapter 2 has also presented a statistical overview on twentieth century waste production in all three cities,

314 which is one of the most novel contributions this thesis has to offer to existing research on the history of waste in China. For the first time, the in-depth analysis presented in chapter 2.1 has placed waste production in direct relation to accelerating urbanization and urban population growth throughout from the early to the late twentieth century. The data presented in this chapter were derived through an extensive recombination of fragmented data from various primary sources, backed up by additional data cited from secondary literature. Prior to this thesis, statistics on urban waste production have not been presented in a long-term historical overview, nor in the form of a comprehensive comparison between several different cities. Without statistics as a reference, it has previously been impossible to make informed assumptions on the actual scope of urban waste pollution in Chinese cities, the realistic effort and structural framework necessary to manage urban waste accumulations, the degree to which Chinese urban societies themselves were exposed to waste, contributed to its accumulation, or suffered from waste pollution, and most fundamentally, the structural necessity for systematic measures at the municipal level in the name of public health. These findings strongly support the argument of a long-term development of urban waste pollution in twentieth-century China and mirror its relationship with urban growth, industrialization, and economic development.

The Role of Technology Based on the analysis of organizational macro-structures in Part I, Part II has taken a closer look at the environmental dimensions of waste management in all three cities and the methods chosen locally to fight or even prevent waste pollution and wastage of resources. As chapter 3 has shown, waste pollution usually developed as the result of a complex amalgamation of various factors that could not be singled down to one universal cause. In all three case studies, difficulties in long-term planning, a lack of future orientation in waste management and an incomplete industrialization of waste treatment played an important role in an overall insufficient waste management performance. The applicability of already established technology proved to be sensitive towards changes in the composition and general volume of the waste that was produced locally in all three cities. It was also especially sensitive towards the speed at which these changes happened. By the mid-twentieth century, all three cities were

315 already lacking the technological means to flexibly adapt to the quickly rising production of increasingly toxic and non-biodegradable wastes that came with industrial development. In conjunction with weak environmental law and an emphasis on economic goals over environmental protection, serious waste pollution occurred almost inevitably in all three cities, regardless of the locally dominant economic system. In Shanghai and Chengdu, the major contributing factors to this problem situation were a general technological underdevelopment, a lack of understanding for the long-term consequences of uncontrolled waste disposal as well as the underlying ideology of the socialist recycling economy, which redefined waste as a resource and ultimately denied that waste could ever become a problem. In Hong Kong, the major reason for a serious neglect of waste pollution was the colonial government’s libertarian growth paradigm, under which environmental problems were only a minor concern, combined with a delayed investment into industrial waste management units. Ultimately, all three cities ended up dependent on landfill technology, which, besides incineration, belongs to the environmentally most damaging waste management technologies that exist. Chapter 3 has also clarified one further point: the success of different waste management strategies depended from specific local conditions, especially geographical restrictions and conditions dictated by the natural environment. While legislation, organization, and education with regard to waste treatment are based on generalizable norms, the actual choice of an effective waste management strategy needs to meet specific local requirements. Essentially, emerging problems can only be solved locally and with regard to the resources and circumstances that are locally dominant. While the first two chapters have focused on the macro-structures that make all three cities comparable, this chapter has explored some of the ways in which each location was essentially facing its own unique challenges, which the overarching institutions and legal structures could not necessarily have been expected to always provide a suitable remedy for. Consequently, the ways in which pollution manifested itself was always place- specific and determined each locality’s individual capacities to fight and overcome pollution in the first place. This thesis argues that there cannot be ‘the one’ universal solution to urban waste pollution, especially not in a country as vast and diverse as China.

316 Conclusions on Historical Chinese Circular Economies While chapter 3 has laid its focus on pollution and ‘hard’ technologies, chapter 4 has explored China’s major ‘soft’ waste management technology that was, at least in principle, pollution-preventing: in various forms and with varying degrees of intensity over time, recycling techniques and discourses permeated both the informal and the official sector in all three cities, primarily in Shanghai and Chengdu, but to a certain extent also in Hong Kong. This chapter builds on the observations made previously by other scholars (especially Goldstein, Dikötter, Dong) that Mainland China’s cities possessed vibrant informal recycling networks during the jindai period, which were absorbed by the national recycling economy during the Mao era and later became independent again, continuing to form the ‘backbone’ of sustainable resource management. As the first study to have offered an in-depth view into the everyday living realities and trade conditions of individual recyclers between the Late Qing reform period and the Revolutionary period, this chapter has gone beyond the investigation of macro-structures around resource circulation—such as the ways in which distribution networks were organized—and brought the exploration of the topic back to the personal level, to inner-societal discourse and to the role of the individual in sustainability strategies. As the analysis has shown, jindai informal recyclers, most of them individuals from the poorest strata of urban societies, fell victim to social discrimination despite their key positions in the recycling trade. With the introduction of national recycling in Revolutionary China, they did not automatically gain a higher social status in all different respects, but their work did: the significance of recycling shifted from the means of survival of a small group to everybody’s responsibility. In the national recycling scheme, informal recycling knowledge and official recycling directives merged with ubiquitous representation in every single work unit. Although chapter 4 has focused on Mainland China due to the close connection of the topic to the socialist recycling economy, the penetrance and longevity of informal recycling structures even in Hong Kong proves their significance as a core feature of a unique ‘Chinese’ experience of sustainable waste management in modern history. This chapter has framed individual recyclers and advocators of recycling as holders of specific sustainability knowledge and the structures of the socialist recycling economy as gateways for knowledge transmission. The way in

317 which recycling knowledge structures of the Republican and Revolutionary periods successfully blended with each other has been proven by the example of the literary genre of the ‘recycling manuals’, which demonstrate the adoption and unfolding of recycling knowledge from the Republican era in the context of the socialist recycling economy. The analysis of the ‘recycling manuals’ has shown that flows of recycling knowledge were still strong enough even towards the end of the twentieth century to suggest that Chinese urban societies had preserved key features of a ‘recycling society’—a term usually associated with pre-modern, pre- industrialized societies—while simultaneously industrializing at high speed. In the case of late twentieth-century Mainland China, however, the coexistence of recycling, accelerating industrialization and beginning consumerism resulted in a complex and somewhat flexible relationship to and interpretation of waste that could adjust to trend changes in political ideology. In this, the historical experience of waste in Mainland China differed significantly from the one Hong Kong, where the relationship to waste had switched mainly to the linear (production–consumption–disposal) model, and it also differed specifically from the experience made by societies of the Global North.

An Ambivalent Historical Relationship with Waste

Were the recycling initiatives of the socialist circular economy desirable, or would they even deserve to be revived? Despite severe flaws at the planning level, the ideology of the national recycling scheme under socialism was based on a comprehensive notion of sustainability, which, according to Zsuzsa Gille’s analysis of the comparable case of Hungary under socialism, were even “akin to industrial ecology”.671 Certainly, the national recycling economy was originally not about an improvement of the environment. Nonetheless, given today’s possibilities to view waste problems in a more differentiated way than half a century or a century ago, a potential new attempt at the nation recycling scheme could aim at the integration of economic and environmental goals; one does not necessarily exclude the other. The example of national recycling under socialism also demonstrates that, historically, it has been possible to mobilize a whole nation to contribute to a ‘zero waste’ goal. Gille has identified a powerful, lasting psychological effect in

671 Gille, Zsuzsa, “Actor Networks, Modes of Production, and Waste Regimes,” 203. 318 this and points out that the national recycling scheme empowered the single individual to personally contribute to environmental problem solving.672 This thesis argues that such an effect could possibly be revived in the Chinese case, at least as long as today’s elderly generation stills recalls their own experiences with national recycling and potentially even holds some personal, dormant recycling knowledge. Such experiences could potentially be mobilized to introduce new, free market-based circular economy models in the future. The historical process of recycling knowledge transmission has hitherto received only very limited scholarly attention, which is why chapter 4 lays a basis for future discussions on this topic, possibly also for future comparisons of different socialist or formerly socialist countries. In conclusion, this thesis has presented a comprehensive introduction into three twentieth-century Chinese urban societies’ relationship to waste. Its results are mainly specific to the case studies examined but the analysis has pointed out larger underlying structures, which suggest a comparability with other Chinese cities, wherever possible. These include, for example, the discussed establishment of nation-wide standards for waste management, the typical organization of waste removal and the fertilizer system as well as informal and official approaches to recycling. Having investigated both locally established methods as well as ideas imported or inspired by Western colonialist structures on Chinese soil, and having followed the transformation of these methods through the decades, this analysis has traced back a unique and, in many aspects, ambivalent historical experience with waste management in Chinese urban societies. This ambivalence, along with the discussed infrastructural deficits can serve as an explanation for the persistence of waste problems in Mainland China until the present day. As Hong Kong and Mainland China are slowly re-approaching at the formal level, these structural problems and Hong Kong’s own unique situation at the verge of a waste crisis may merge into a complex future challenge. Certainly, since the millennial turn, new problems may have emerged which are not part of this analysis and should be studied in future research projects. As a study that has aimed to explore the said topic at maximum breadth, this thesis has explored its three different case studies with special regard to a comparison of continuities and changes in the long-term local relationships to

672 Gille, “Waste Utopias,” 42. 319 waste. Each single case study may have left certain time gaps uncovered and has jumped over historical examples that seemed to possess no obvious connection or comparability with the other case studies. Moreover, each city’s individual relationship with waste had features that were unique and place-specific, and not all of them could be discussed in detail in this thesis. With waste being a strongly place-bound problem, all locally addressed challenges and their solutions are not necessarily comparable. Consequently, each city’s historical relationship with waste would ultimately deserve another single study of its own. Having laid the groundwork for future investigations, this thesis hopes to present a solid reference basis for such individual, in-depth case studies, as well as for future comparisons between Chinese and other case studies in a global perspective. As has been shown, influences from the ‘West’, such as new technologies or new organizational approaches to waste management were originally strong drivers of pollution control in all three cities. Simultaneously, resource-saving cultural practices that are typical of specific historical ‘Chinese’ approaches to waste management were passed on continuously through changing political times and were even integrated successfully under foreign rule on Chinese soil. In hindsight, both of these aspects seem to have been important for the formation of an ambiguous Erfahrungsraum—if Reinhart Koselleck’s term may be borrowed here—in the historical relationship with urban waste. Compared to the capitalist societies of the Global North, the Chinese relationship to urban waste has historically oscillated more strongly in its definition of waste on the spectrum between ‘useless residue’ and ‘valuable’; there has been an on-going, more actively engaged process of transformation and re-transformation of value construction with regard to waste materials, which led to ambivalences in the identification with waste and the problems caused by it. As much as this now causes problems for the ideological foundation and strategic standardization of waste management practices, one could also argue that the existing dynamic in the historical interpretation of waste makes Chinese urban societies, at least in principle, more flexible to reinvent or change its existing relationship than ‘Western’ societies are. Although the classical ‘linear’ approach to waste management that is practiced in consumer socities is now ubiquitous in China, the interpretation of waste is still fluid to a certain extent in various Chinese social contexts. Thus, disposability and pollution do not have to remain a given.

320 Bibliography

1. Archival Sources

1.1. Shanghai Municipal Archives (Shanghai shi dang’anguan 上海市档案馆)

A- Shiwei xitong dang’an 市委系统档案 [Systematic Documents of the Municipal Party Committee] A54-2-199-471

B- Zhengfu xitong dang’an 政府系统档案 [Systematic Documents of Government] B1-9-184-101 B246-1-603-53 B109-4-156-65 B246-2-925-45 B163-2-1457 B256-2-186-1 B182-1-1314-161 B256-3-6-66 B233-1-79-22 B257-1-3092-142 B242-1-1022-24

Q- Minguo shiqi dang’an 民国时期档案 [Documents from the Republican Period] Q215-1-8104 Q400-1-3611

R- Riwei shiqi dang’an 日伪时期档案 [Documents from the Japanese Occupation Period] R51-1-300 R50-1-382-17

U- Zujie dang’an 租界档案 [Documents from the Foreign Settlements] Files from the International Settlement: U1-3-350 U1-14-2806 U1-3-788 U1-14-2807 U1-3-789 U1-14-2813 U1-3-1310 U1-14-6238 U1-4-3254 U1-16-344 U1-4-3688 U1-16-2129 U1-14-1054 U1-16-2133 U1-14-2591 U1-16-2138 U1-14-2802

321 Files from the French Concession: U38-1-575 U38-1-2711 U38-1-946 U38-4-3007/08 U38-1-947 U38-4-3034 U38-1-948 U38-4-3268 U38-1-967 U38-4-3273 U38-1-968 U38-5-482 U38-1-997

1.2. Chengdu Municipal Archives (Chengdu shi dang’anguan 成都市档案馆)

民国 0002-001-11-020 民国 0002-001-11-021 民国 0002-001-14-054 77-002-171-6 78-002-484-6 78-002-484-7

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1.4. Hong Kong Public Records Office [Xianggang lishi dang’an dalou 香港歷史檔案大樓]

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The Hong Kong Museum of History Resource Centre [Xianggang lishi dalou—Cankao zi keshi 香港历史大楼——参考资科室]

Photo Collection: P1973.0001–0046 P1973.0048–0078

2. Primary Sources from Online Databases

2.1. Hong Kong Government Reports Online (1842–1941). Full-text image database. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/index.jsp. Last accessed 30 July, 2018.

“Government Notification No. 223.” The Hongkong Government Gazette, June 23 (1883): 549–551. “Government Notification No. 132.” The Hongkong Government Gazette, March 4 (1899), 336–337; 341. “Preliminary Report on the Sanitary Condition of Hongkong. Published by the Public Works Office [“Chadwick Report”].” The Hongkong Government Gazette, 11 April (1902), 128–129. “Report of the Colonial Surgeon on His Inspection of the Town of Victoria, and on the Pig Licensing System. Hongkong, April 1874. Colonial Surgeon, Dr. Ayres, to Hon. J.G. Austin, Colonial Secretary.” Administrative Reports 1879. Hong Kong, 1879. “Report on the Meeting on 18th October, 1923,” Hong Kong Hansard: Reports of the Meetings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Session 1923. Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931. “Report of the Colonial Surgeon on His Inspection of the Town of Victoria, and on the Pig Licensing System. Hongkong, April 1874. Colonial Surgeon, Dr. Ayres, to Hon. J.G. Austin, Colonial Secretary.” Administrative Reports 1879. Hong Kong, 1879. “Sanitary Reports (Hongkong): Sanitation—Dry Earth System of Conservancy.” Administrative Reports 1879. Hong Kong, 1879.

URBAN COUNCIL. Hong Kong Annual Report by the Chairman, Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the Financial Year, 1950–1952. Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1952.

323 ——. Hong Kong Annual Departmental Report 1953–73. Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1973.

2.2. Historical Laws of Hong Kong Online. Full-text image database. http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/oelawhk/home. Last accessed 15 May, 2018.

Laws of Hong Kong: Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer, 1988. The Ordinances of Hongkong, 1844–1923, Prepared under Authority of Ordinance No. 18 of 1923. Edited by Arthur Dyer Ball. Hong Kong, 1923. The Ordinances of the Legislative Council of the Colony of Hongkong, Commencing with the Year 1844. Compiled for the Government of Hongkong by A.J. Leach. Hong Kong, 1890.

2.3. Virtual Shanghai: Urban Space in Time. Virtual Platform and Database directed by Prof. Dr. Christian Henriot, Institute de Recherches Asiatique, Université Aix-Marseille. https://www.virtualshanghai.net/. Last updated 2016. Last accessed 3 October, 2019.

Annual Report of the Shanghai Municipal Council, 1930. (Section: E-Library) “Louza Police Station.” (Section: Buildings) “Plan de la Concession française de Changhai,” 1934. (Section: Source Maps)

3. Historical Newspapers and Journals

3.1. Shanghai Newspapers

North China Herald “Advertisement—Notice.” North China Herald, 12 July, 1856, 198. “Report of Watch Committee.” North China Herald, 17 December, 1874, 594; “A Refuse Destructor Recommended.” North China Herald and South China and China Gazette, 26 June, 1899, 1159. “Ratepayers’ Meeting.” North China Herald and South China and China Gazette, 27 March, 1901, 575. “Anti-plague Measures.” North China Herald, 11 November, 1910, 339. “Shanghai Building Work.” North China Herald, 15 March, 1933, 414. “Refuse Disposal: Incinerators Abandoned.” North China Herald, 13 January, 1937, 70.

324 Shenbao 申報 [Shanghai News] “Banli qing dao kunnan qingxing... Jingfei zhichu...Banli jishou 辦理淸道困難情形經費支絀辦理棘手 [Handling the Difficulties with Street Cleaning—Funds Are Insufficient—Situation Hard to Handle].” Shenbao 申报, 19 July, 1928, 21. “Jietou fengjing——shisan sui Chen Xiuying 街头风景——十三岁陈秀瑛 [The Scenery of a Street Corner: Thirteen Year-old Chen Xiuying].” Shenbao 申报, 5 December, 1938, 13. “Kuoda qingjie yundong jinqi juxing yizhou 扩大清洁运动今起举行一週 [Huge Cleanup Campaign to Be Held for One Week as of Today].” Shenbao 申, 15 May, 1949. “Laji fenhuachang jiang dong gong… mingnian jiuyue jian ke wang luocheng 垃圾焚化廠將動工明年九月間可望落成 [Waste Incineration Factory Will Start Construction—Completion Expected Next Year Around September].” Shenbao 申報, 19 October, 1930. “Qingjie yundong yu gonggong weisheng 清洁运动与公共卫生 [The Cleanup Campaign and Public Health],” Shenbao 申报, 22 April, 1936. “Shi Weishengju zhuyi shimin weisheng... Hu nan zhenliaosuo xia yuechu kaimu... Chuli laji caiyong kexue fangfa... Chuangban gongmu jihua jixu jinxing 市衛生局注意市民衛生滬南診療所下月初開幕處理垃圾採用科學方法創辦公墓計劃繼續進行 [The Municipal Public Health Bureau Pays Attention to the Health of Its Citizens—Clinic to Open Up at the Beginning of Next Month in South Shanghai—Applying Scientific Methods in Waste Treatment—Plan for the Establishment of a Public Cemetery Still in Progress].” Shenbao 申报, 23 September, 1933, 12. “Weisheng yundong dahui jinri xing kaimuli bing xing da saochu yundong 衛生運動大會今日行開幕禮並舉行大掃除運動 [The Public Health Campaign Conference Has Its Opening Ceremony Today; Big Cleanup Campaign Is Also Being Carried Out].” Shenbao 申报, 1 June, 1944. “Weisheng ju zhuyi qingdao gongzuo 衛生局注意淸道工作 [Public Health Bureau Is Paying Attention to Cleansing Work].” Shenbao 申报, 21 February, 1929, 21. “Zujie laji qingqi Pujiang 租界垃圾傾棄浦江 [The International Settlement’s Waste in Thrown Into the River Pu].” Shenbao 申報, 18 June, 1929. “Zujie laji wenti 租界垃圾问题 [Waste Problems in the Concessions].” Shenbao 申報, 12 August, 1932.

3.2. Hong Kong Newspapers

Gongshang wanbao 工商晚報 [Kung Sheung Evening News] “Meifu zixunhui yu fang zhong zai zhichu laji meiqi yingxiang jumin… fenhualu ying qian wang jiaoqu 美孚諮詢會與坊眾在指出垃圾霉氣影響居民焚化爐應遷往郊區 [The Mei Foo Neighborhood Council and Local Crowds Have Pointed Out Again that the Evaporations from the Waste Are

325 Affecting the Residents—Incinerator Has to Be Moved to the Suburbs].” Gongshang wanbao 工商晚報, 6 September, 1979, 2. “Pingzhou nanwan erqian jumin fandui dangju zai qu nei chongjianlaji fenhualu 坪洲南灣二千居民反對在區內重建垃圾焚化爐 [At Peng Chau’s South Bay Two Thousand Residents Have Opposed the Reerection of An Incinerator].” Gongshang wanbao 工商晚報, 9 September, 1979, 4.

Huaqiao ribao 華僑日報 [Overseas Chinese Daily News] “Laji fenhualu daozhi huanjing wuran... zhengfu nicai qita fangfa chuli richang suo shou liesa 垃圾焚化爐導致環境污染政府擬採其他方法處理日常所收獵鍔 [Incinerator Leads to Environmental Pollution—Government Intends to Adopt Other Solutions to Manage Daily Waste Collections],” Huaqiao ribao 華僑日報. 10 May, 1985, 6. “Ni quxiao fenhualu cai liesa duitian fa 擬取消焚化炉採獵鍔堆填法 [Planning to Abolish the Incinerators and Adopt Landfilling].” Huaqiao ribao 華僑日報, 12 April, 1986, 10.

South China Morning Post “Air Pollution,” South China Morning Post, 5 August, 1969, 13. “British Military Administration, Hong Kong,” South China Morning Post, 26 April, 1946, 11.

DUBOIS, J. “There’ll Be No Clean Beaches or Bays Left: Unless Precautions Are Taken….” South China Morning Post, 19 August, 1975, 10. “Editorial Article 1.” South China Morning Post, 23 May, 1905, 6. “Editorial Article 2.” South China Morning Post, 17 March, 1905, 4. “Environmental Sanitation Seminar Soon.” South China Morning Post, 26 September, 1956, 8. “Garbage Problem: Shanghai Sets Example to Hong Kong.” South China Morning Post, 29 October, 1930, 3.

GOLGER, OTTO J. “Deteriorating City: A Damning Indictment of the Way in which Hongkong Is Ignoring A Major Threat to Its Health.” South China Sunday Post, 6 March, 1966, 18.

HALL, L. “Govt’s Moves to Clean the Environment.” South China Morning Post, 12 October, 1974, 11.

OLIVIER, A.W. “Taking Heat Off the Incinerator.” South China Morning Post, 2 December, 1980, 20. “Relief Work,” South China Morning Post, 13 September, 1945, 1. “Removal of Rubbish by Scavengers Should Be Controlled.” South China Morning Post, 20 May, 1964, 9. “Solid Waste Poses Problems, South China Morning Post, 25 March, 1976, 7. “Street Cleansing: Big Scale Job Organised by Authorities.” South China Morning Post, 20 September, 1945, 1.

326 “Waste Disposal Plans Rejected,” South China Sunday Morning Post, 5 March, 1989, 3.

WEBSTER, MICHAEL. “Hongkong Should Show the Way: Saving Our Environment.” South China Morning Post, 26 November, 1971, 2.

YEH, JAMES. “Scavengers on the March.” South China Morning Post, 17 June, 1962, 16.

3.3. Chengdu Newspapers

Sichuan ribao 四川日报 [Sichuan Daily] “Benshi juxing qingjie yundong 本市舉行清潔運動 [The Municipality Is Carrying Out a Cleanup Campaign].” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 20 October, 1939, 3. “Benshi qingjie yundong buri jiang shixing 本市清潔運動不日將實行 [Municipal Cleanup Campaign Will be Carried Out within the Next Few Days],” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 29 April, 1930, 7. “Chengdu shi weisheng qiantu bukan wen… jian shu fuyi wu yan kanjian 成都市衛生前途不堪問———检鼠夫役无眼看见, [It’s Unbearable to Ask about the Future of Sanitation in Chengdu—Rat Supervision Service Have No Eyes in their Heads].” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 24 April, 1930, 7. “Qingjie yundong yu weisheng zhanlan 清潔運動與衛生展覽 [Cleanup Campaign and Public Health Exhibition],” Sichuan ribao 四川日报, 17 April, 1930, 7.

Xinxin Xinwen 新新新闻 [Latest News] “Chengdu de qingjie yundong 成都的清潔運動 [The Chengdu Cleanup Campaign].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 22 April, 1941. “Feiliao gonghui zhengli cesuo banfa… ling ge tongye zunzhao 肥料工会整理厕所办法——令各同业遵照 [Fertilizer Trade Unions Rearrange Toilet Regulations—Ordering Everyone in the Business to Follow them],” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 5 May, 1932. “Gong’an ju zai jin suidi qing dao zhazi… Tang you guyi weifan zhe ji chuan’an zhong fa 公安局再禁隨地傾倒渣滓子倘有故意違犯者即傳案重罰 [Police Again Prohibits Random Waste Dumping—Willful Violators Will Be Brought to Court and Punished Severely].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 4 April, 1932, 10. Jiancha qingjie 檢查清潔 [Examining Street Cleaning].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 21 May, 1940. “Jiemian de qingjie 街面的清潔 [Street Surface Cleaning].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞 [Latest News], 23 June, 1942, 194. “Shifu jiji zhengqi shijie qingjie... zhuang ding qingjie guize tongling zunshou you bufu quangao zhe ping zhong gongfa 市府積極整飭市街清潔——裝定清潔規則通令遵守有不服勸告者憑衆公罰 [Municipal Government Actively

327 Consolidates Street Cleaning in the City: Sets Up and Defines Regulations and Ciculates Orders—In Case of Violation the Council Will Act According to Public Law].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞. 16 October, 1930, 10. “Shifu gou di nian mu yu duiji zhazi 市府購地廿餘畝堆積渣滓子 [Municipal Government Purchases Over Twenty mu of Land for Waste Dumping].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 16 May, 1937, 9. “Shizhengfu zhuyi jiemian qingji... yanjin ge jie jumin qingdao wuhui zhazi 市政府注意街面清潔——嚴禁各街居民傾倒污穢渣滓子 [Municipal Government Pays Attention to Street Surface Cleaning—Residents of All Streets Are Strictly Forbidden to Dump Filth and Garbage],” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 20 March, 1932, 9. “Waidongnan zhazi langji… Gong She liang ju zhiding didian duiji 外東南渣滓狼籍——公社兩局指定地點堆積 [In the Outer Southeast, Waste Is Scattered About; The Police Bureau and the Bureau for Social Affairs Appoint Space for Disposal].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新聞, 4 August, 1932, 10. “Weisheng yundong zhou xian suqing laji 衛生運動週先肅清垃圾 [During the Public Health Campaign Week, Waste Will Be Cleaned Up First].” Xinxin xinwen 新新新闻, 7 August, 1948.

3.4. Miscellaneous Newspapers and Journals

“B, wenjian: zhi gongbuju wu guwen qing jianyi jiang zujie laji yun zhi Pudong jian (bu yi yue shiqi ri): fulu Wusongjiang shuili gongcheng ju zhuren Chen Enzi jun laihan (yi yue shiqi ri) B、文件:致工部局五顾问请建议将租界垃圾运至浦东缄(补一月廿七日):附录吴淞江水利工程局主任陈恩梓君来函(一月十七日) [B, Document: Inviting the Public Works Bureau’s Five Consultants to Kindly Propose that the Concessions’ Waste Be Taken to the Pudong Dump in the Future (Put Together on January 17): Attachment to the Letter of Sir Chen Enzi, Head of the Wusong River Irrigation Bureau (January 17)],” Shanghai Zongshanghui yuebao 上海总商会月报 [“Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce Monthly”] 2.4 (1922): 8–9. “Each Municipality Puts Blame On Others for Garbage Menace: River Thickens with Refuse—$200,000 a Year Paid by Settlement, Concession to Contractors.” The China Press, 29 May, 1932, n.p. JIN ZHAOWEN 金兆文. “Tianxia wu feiwu 天下无废物 [There is no Waste on Earth]. “Jiefang” banyuekan “解放”半月刊 [“Liberation”, Bi-monthly Journal] 11 (1960): 22–25. “Lizhijiao jumin yi renshoule shinian laji fenhualu sanfa chouqi... dangju zuo xuanbu jia gao yancong... jiu ge yue gongcheng wancheng hou cai hui gaishan 荔枝角居民已忍受了十年垃圾焚化爐散發臭氣當局昨宣佈加高煙囪九個月工程完成後才會有改善 [The Residents of Lai Chi Kok Have Endured the Smell from the Incinerator for Ten Years Now— Authorities Have Announced the Addition of A High Chimney Yesterday— Things Will Get Better Only after Nine Months of Construction Are

328 Completed].” Da gong bao 大公報 [Ta Kung Pao, Hong Kong Branch], 23 August, 1977, 5. “Qingjie cesuo banfa… tonggao shixing yi wei gongyi 清洁厕所办法———通告施行以维公益 [Regulations for Cleaning Out Public Toilets—Announcing Enforcement to Safeguard the Good of the Public].” Chengdu kuaibao 成都快報 [Chendu Bulletin], 24 March, 1932.

4. Primary Texts

AHLERS, JOHN. “Shanghai at the War’s End.” Far Eastern Survey 14.23. (1945): 329–333.

CONSEIL D’ADMINISTRATION MUNICIPALE DE LA CONCESSION FRANÇAISE DE SHANGHAI. Compte-rendu de la gestion pour l’exercice 1921—Budget 1922 [Minutes of Administration for the Fiscal Year 1921—Budget for 1922]. Shanghai: Imprimerie municipale, 1921. Bibliothèque Numérique Asiatique: Périodiques. Last accessed 14 March, 2019. http://www.bnasie.eu/BN/Periodiques.

COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS NANKING, CHINA. The New Life Movement, Information Bulletin II.22, December 21, 1936, 205–207. Feiwu bian huangjin—Shaonian kezhi huodong congshu 废物变黃金少年科技活动丛书 [Waste Turned to Gold. Science and Technology Activities for the Youth Series]. Shanghai: Shaonian ertong chubanshe, 1960. Feiwu bu fei 废物不废 [Waste Not Wasted]. Shanghai: Keji weisheng chubanshe, 1958. Feiwu zhanlan (neirong jieshao) 废物展览（内容介绍）[Waste Exhibition (Presentation of Content)]. Xinhuizhen: Guangdongsheng Xinhuizhen gongxiaohezuoshe, 1977. Fu Chongju 傅崇矩, ed. Chengdu tonglan 成都通览 [A General Overview on Chengdu]. Chengdu: Chengdu shidai chubanshe, reprinted 2005. GU GENGFU 顧賡甫. Feiwu liyong gongyi xin jiaocai 廢物利用工藝新教材 [Waste Utilization—New Teaching Material On Handcrafting]. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1935.

HANWELL, NORMAN D. “Shanghai’s Worst Crisis.” Far Eastern Survey 7.15 (1938): 167–176. HUA YOUHUA 華有華. Chengshi weisheng 城市衛生 [Urban Hygiene]. Aiguo weishengye shu 愛國衛生業書 [Patriotic Community Health Publications] vol. 6. Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, 1953. Hubeisheng Wuhanshi jiu feiwuzi huishou liyong zhanlan jiangjie cihui bian 湖北省武汉市旧废物资回收利用展览讲解词汇编（内部文件主义保存） [Explanation of Vocabulary to an Exhibition on the Reclamation and Utilization of Old Goods and Waste Goods in Wuhan, Hubei Province]. Wuhan: Zhanlanhui, 1966.

329 HSÜ, SHUHSI. Japan and China. Political and Economic Studies 4. Prepared under the Auspices of the Council of International Affairs, Chunking. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1938.

INGLIS, A., A.M.I.C.E., Director of Public Works, Scott & Wilson, and Kirkpatrick & Partners, Consulting Engineers, Manson House, Nathan Road, Hong Kong. Report on Reclamation at Gin Drinker’s Bay. Hong Kong: Government of Hong Kong, 1959. LI JIANFENG 李剑锋. Feiwu miaoyong 300 fa 废物妙用 300 法 [300 Smart Ways to Use Waste]. Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe 1989. MA YINLIANG 馬蔭良. Feiwu liyong 廢物利用 [Waste Utilization]. Shiyong xiao gongyi di yi ji 實用小工藝第一集 [Practical Little Crafts Vol. 1]. Shanghai: Zhongguo kexue tushu yiqi gongsi, 1941.

MAXWELL, WILLIAM H. The Removal and Disposal of Town Refuse. London: The Sanitary Publishing Company, Ltd., 1898.

PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. Report on Sewage Disposal in Urban Areas of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Roads & Drainage Hong Kong Division, 1964, 1– 2.

URBAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT. The Cleansing Handbook for Supervisory Staff— Jiejingke shouce 潔淨科手冊. Hong Kong: Urban Services Department, 1968.

XINJIANG WEIWU’ER ZIZHIQU SHANGYETING YANJIUSHI 新疆维吾尔自治区商业厅研究室 [Trade Hall Research Office of Weiwu’er Autonomous Region, Xinjiang], ed. Tantan Feipin de huishou liyong 谈谈废品的回收利用 [Discussion on Waste Reclamation and Utilization]. Urumqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1963.

ZHONGHUA RENMIN GONGHEGUO DI ER SHANGYEBU, TUCHAN FEIPIN CAIGOU GUANLI JU 中华人民共和国第二商业部、土产废品采购管理局 [The Second Ministry of Commerce of the Peoples’ Republic of China, and the Bureau for Purchase and Administration of Local Products and Waste], eds. Weishenme huishou liyong feipin 为什么回收利用废品 [Why Reclaim and Reuse Waste?]. Feipin huishou liyong zhishi xiao congshu 废品回收利用知识小丛书 [Waste Reclamation and Utilizaiton Knowledge Collection]. Beijing: Caizheng jingji chubanshe, 1958.

ZHONGYANG AIGUO WEISHENG YUNDONG WEIYUANHUI BANGONGSHI, ZHONGHUA RENMIN GONGHEGUO WEISHENGBU FANGYI SI 中央爱国卫生运动委员会办公室、中华人民共和国卫生部卫生防疫司 [The Patriotic Health Campaign Committee Bureau of the Central Government, and the Bureau for Hygiene and Epidemic Prevention of the Public Health Department of the Peoples’ Republic of China], eds. Aiguo weisheng yundong jingyan huiji 爱国卫生运动经验汇集 [Compilation of Experiences from the Patriotic Health Campaign] vol. 3. Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe, 1960.

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344 APPENDIX

Data Corresponding with the Illustrations in Chapter 2.1

Population Development

Shanghai673 Hong Kong674 Chengdu675

1,350,000 386,159 1900s (1905) (1901)

676 1910s 1,590,000 [~436,159] 345,867 (1914) (1910s) (1910)

1920s 2,800,000 625,166 302,895 (1928) (1921) (1926)

677 1930s [~3,310,000] 840,473 438,995 (1934) (1931) (1934)

1940s 5,800,000 1,639,337 656,920 (1948) (1949) (1949)

678 1950s 5,237,000 2,360,000 [1,408,020] (1955) (1950) (1957)

6,431,000 3,133,131 1960s (1965) (1961)

1970s 5,571,000 3,936,795 3,851,100 (1975) (1971) (1979)

1980s 7,102,000 5,524,600 8,626,800 (1986) (1986) (1985)

Table 1. The Population of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1900s–1980s

673 Data series for Shanghai taken from: Xie, “Shanghai lishi shang renkou de bianqian,” 108; Gui Shixun and Liu Xian, “Urban Migration in Shanghai, 1950–88: Trends and Characteristics,” 537. 674 Data series for Hong Kong taken from: Saw, Swee-Hock, and Kin, Chiu Wing, “Population Growth and Redistribution in Hong Kong, 1841–1975,” 126; Schmitt, “Implications of Density in Hong Kong,” 210; “Age and Sex Distribution of Population of Hong Kong, 1971,” 67; Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong SAR, Demographic Trends in Hong Kong. 675 Data series for Chengdu taken from: Wang, The Teahouse, 31; Chen Lisheng 陈李生, “Chengdu shi renkou zhuangkuang gaishu 成都市人口状况概述”, 75; Chen Lijun 陈莉君, “Chengdu shi renkou dili de ji ge wenti 成都市人口地理的几根问题,” 26. 676 This figure is the author’s own calculation based on the previous (1901) figure and Saw and Chiu’s statement that a maximum of 50,000 new inhabitants were estimated to have joined the Hong Kong population between 1911 and 1919 (cf. Saw and Kin, “Population Growth and Redistribution in Hong Kong,” 126). 677 This figure is the author’s own calculation based on figures on demographic data from the International Settlement, French Concession, and Huajie areas Shanghai during the year 1934 as documented in SMA, U1-16-2129. 678 This figure is the author’s own calculation based on Chen Lisheng’s statements on population increase between 1949 and 1957 (cf. Chen, “Chengdu shi renkou dili de ji ge wenti, 26). I Table 1 corresponds with Figure 1 in the main text. All figures presented in Table 1 are cited from secondary literature (see footnotes to each city’s data series). Exceptions are set [in brackets]: these figures are either derived from information documented in specific primary sources or calculated by the author based on specific information in the cited secondary literature (see the corresponding footnotes for details). The missing data for Chengdu’s population during the 1900s and 1960s has been impossible to reconstruct despite the author’s extensive and thorough investigation.

Shanghai Concessions Hong Kong679 IS680 FC681 Huajie

European/ 15,406 12,409 5,825 Russian/ (1930) (1932) (1931) American

971,397 462,342 399,608 Chinese (1930) (1932) (1931)

21,055 5,488 Other (1930) (1931)

682 1,000,000 430,000 1,800,000 total (1934) (1934) (1934)

Table 2. The Population Composition of Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1930s

679 Report on the Census of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1931, 107. The percentage of Chinese inhabitants during 1930s and 1940s was at around 95% on average (Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 109). Note that only registered citizens could be considered in the census. Referring to Saw and Kin’s finding that Hong Kong’s population was 840,473 in 1931 (cf. Saw and Kin, “Population Growth and Redistribution in Hong Kong,” 126), the actual percentage of Chinese citizens in comparison with other ethnic groups must have been even higher. 680 “Census of the Foreign Population of Shanghai on October 22, 1930,” and “Census of the Chinese Population of the Foreign Settlement of Shanghai on October 22, 1930,” in Annual Report of the Shanghai Municipal Council, 1930, 333, 337 (Virtual Shanghai Database: E-Library). 681 Cornet, Christine, “Système concessionaire et politique française: Un exemple original de la politique colonials de la France à Shanghai,” 151. 682 All figures on the total populations of the International Settlement, French Concession and Huajie are based on information documented in SMA, U1-16-2129. These figures should be regarded as approximated values. II Table 2 corresponds with Figure 2 in the main text. All figures presented in Table 2 are cited from either primary or secondary literature (see the corresponding footnotes to each city’s data series). For Shanghai’s Huajie areas, only a figure on the local total population could be reconstructed, while exact information on population composition has been impossible to reconstruct despite the author’s extensive investigations. However, as has been stated already in the main text, the population of the Huajie areas was dominated by Chinese residents.

Waste Production

This section presents new data on historical waste production in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Chengdu on the basis of findings in various primary sources. It combines it with already published data gathered by other scholars and closes prevailing data gaps through individual calculations. Most primary materials used for this compilation are statistics kept by the different municipalities’ public health authorities that refer to daily, monthly or annual waste collection (including door-to-door household waste collection and street waste cleanups) as well as historical newspapers. After her thorough study of historical waste production statistics, this author wishes to present and verify the collected data in the most transparent way possible, since, in the opinion of this author, some previously published studies— especially the aforementioned Weishengzhi—that engage statistics on waste production have failed to make sufficiently clear statements on the origin or process of reconstruction of the data they present. Therefore, this overview cites them only if there was no other way to close a data gap. As far as possible, this overview gives priority to data cited from primary sources over secondary literature or calculations. All cited sources and literature are indicated in footnotes. As concerns the following statistical overview, a high fragmentation of topic- specific information in the consulted primary materials leads to increased complexity in the display of cited sources. In order to ensure distinct documentation of the exact sources used for the citation or calculation of specific data, the following legend helps clarify the origin of each single figure. This legend and all adjacent explanations refer to Tables 3 (displaying data on daily waste production) and 4 (displaying data on annual waste production) alike as

III both tables are interdependent: due to the fragmentation of data as documented in the primary sources and secondary literature consulted, often there is only one record on either daily or annual waste production for a specific time period. However, all gaps can be filled through calculations; multiplied by the factor 365, information on annual waste production can be derived from information on daily waste production—and vice versa, through division by 365.

Symbol used in table Relation to data source

This figure is cited from either primary The figure is followed by a 11 material or secondary literature (details in footnote symbol. the footnote).

This figure is calculated based on [1] The figure is in brackets. corresponding data in the other table.

The figure is in brackets This figure has been calculated based on [1]* and marked with an the figure displayed in the exact same asterisk. position in the other table.

The figure is in brackets This figure has been calculated through è [1] and marked with a right addition of the figures displayed to its arrow. right.

Tables 3 and 4 correspond with Figures 3 and 4 in the main text. Note that for jindai Shanghai, which is represented separately in both Table 3 and Table 4, minor discrepancies may occur between both tables in cases for which the author has calculated missing data. These discrepancies exist because the consulted primary sources provide different but fragmented data sets for proportional and total values. In some cases, this leads to the effect that figures on waste production displayed under “Shanghai (total)” do not match up perfectly with the proportionate figures displayed under “Shanghai (semi-colonial period)” (if added up). Again, the author would like to point out the tentative character of all new data presented here. None of the presented figures should be regarded as ‘absolute’ values. The Shanghai-related part of Table 4 corresponds with Figure 5 in the main text.

measuring unit: tons/day

Shanghai Shanghai Chengdu Hong Kong (semi-colonial period) (total) IS FC Huajie

90683 316 * 1900s [ ] (1904) (1901)

1910s

684 è 685 686 687 1920s 347 [2,604.84] 845 232 1,491.84 (1927) (1929) (1929) (1929) (1929)

688 è * 689 690 1930s 550 [2,065.4] [965.4] 500 600 (1939) (1930s) (1939) (1934) (1934)

86691 379.6692 >1,600693 1,100694 >1,000695 1940s (1940) (1946–1949) (1948) (1943) (1943)

1950s [173.9]* [882.2]* [1,378.6]* (1953) (1952) (1956)

1960s [297.3]* [1,557.8]* [3,192.9]* (1963) (1968) (1965)

1970s [195.9]* [2,403.8]* [2,340.8]* (1978) (1972) (1975)

696 1980s [816.3]* >6,000 [6,179.5]* (1986) (1982) (1986)

Table 3. Daily Waste Production in Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, 1900s to 1980s

683 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13. The measuring unit referred to in the document is the British hundredweight (cwt), 1 cwt equaling 50.8 kg. Cf. “Hundredweight,” Oxford Living Dictionaries: English, last updated 2019, accessed 21 March, 2019. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hundredweight. 684 “Refuse Disposal: Bullock Carts Almost Abolished. Local Conditions,” South China Morning Post, 16 September, 1927, 13. 685 SMA, U1-3-788. 686 SMA, U38-4-3034. 687 “Shi Weishengju zhi qingdao gongzuo… cihou jiang yong xin fa yunchu laji… Bu ri goudao xinshi sashui qiche 市衞生局之淸道工作此後將用新法運除垃圾不日購到新式灑水汽車 [The Cleansing Work of the Municipal Public Health Bureau—As of Now, New Regulations On Waste Transport—Modern-style Sprinkling Cars Soon To Be Purchased],” Shenbao 申报, 1 July, 1929, 23. 688 “Refuse Removal: Over 550 Tons Handled Daily Last Year. Colony’s Sanitation,” South China Morning Post, 31 May, 1940: 4. 689 SMA, U1-16-2129. 690 Ibid. 691 SPA, 民 148-05-10132. 692 Lau, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong, 110. 693 “Huanjing weisheng chu huiyi shangtao laji boyun fei 環境衛生處會議商討垃圾駁運費 [Environmental Hygiene Office Meets to Discuss Costs for Waste Transport],” Shenbao 申报, 20 April, 1948, 4. 694 SMA, U1-4-3688. 695 “Yi qu Gongwuchu pan shimin xieli hezuo liyong laji fencheng liang bufen meixie zao meiqiu 一區工務處盼市民協力合作利用垃圾分成兩部份煤屑造煤球 [The First District’s Office for Public Affairs Hopes that Residents Will Join Efforts and Co-operate in Reusing Waste and Dividing it into Two Categories—Making Coal Bricks from Coal Dust], Shenbao 申报, 19 October, 1943, 3. 696 Engineering Seminar, Environmental Pollution and Protection in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Engineering Group/University Graduates Association of Hong Kong, 1982), I-27. V

Shanghai Hong Shanghai (semi-colonial period) Chengdu Kong (total) IS FC Huajie

32,850 * 115,457697 1900s [ ] (1904) (1901)

1910s

698 1920s [136,510]* [950,766.6]* [308,425]* 286,450 [544,521.6]* (1927) (1929) (1929) (1921) (1929)

è 699 1930s [200,750]* [753,856] 352,356 [182,500]* [219,000]* (1939) (1933/34) (1933) (1934) (1934)

41,975 * 138,700700 >584,000 * 401,500 * >365,000 * 1940s [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] (1940s) (1947) (1948) (1943) (1943)

701 702 703 1950s 63,500 322,000 503,200 (1953) (1952) (1956)

704 705 706 1960s 108,500 568,600 1,165,400 (1963) (1968) (1965)

707 708 709 1970s 108,000 877,400 854,400 (1978) (1972) (1975)

710 [>2,190,000] 711 1980s 314,000 2,255,500 (1986) * (1986) (1982)

Table 4. Total Annual Waste Production in Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, 1900s to 1980s

Further Examples of Data Calculation Historically speaking, the technical or practical possibility to measure waste by its weight was not always a given. Based on various findings in the local archives

697 SMA, U1-14-6238. 698 SMA, U38-1-947. 699 SMA, U1-16-344. 700 Urban Council, Hong Kong Annual Report by the Chairman, Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the Financial Year, 1950–1952 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1952). 701 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 31. 702 Urban Council, Hong Kong Annual Report by the Chairman. 703 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 112. 704 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 31. 705 Urban Council, Hong Kong Annual Departmental Report 1953–73 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1973). 706 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 112. 707 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 31. 708 Urban Council, Hong Kong Annual Departmental Report 1953–73. 709 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 112. 710 Chengdu shi zhi—huanjing weisheng zhi, 31. 711 Shanghai huanjing weisheng zhi, 113. VI consulted, this author assumes that early- to twentieth-century measurements of waste production were based on the daily involvement of more or less norm-sized collection vehicles (such as wheelbarrows, push-carts, horse-carried or motorized trucks, and boats). The possibility to determine the average volume or weight of a typical collection vehicle when filled with garbage and then simply count how many of them reached the collection points within one day were certainly a practical but probably not very precise means to measure waste accumulation. While the historical application of this technique cannot be verified reliably for all parts of Shanghai and Chengdu, there is concrete evidence that the sanitary authorities of colonial Hong Kong and Shanghai’s French Concession applied exactly this method. For Hong Kong, there are occasional records in the holdings of the Hong Kong Public Records Office that precisely document the daily average weight and number of waste collection vehicles counted to determine daily waste production. For September 18, 1905, for example, the following measurements were documented by the Sanitary authorities: 1. Total number of cart load of rubbish at present collected from the city each day 126 2. Capacity of a dust cart 38 cubic feet 3. Weight of a cart load of rubbish on an average 14 cwt.712

The information given here is sufficient to apply directly in a calculation: with 1 British cwt (hundredweight) equaling about 50.8kg, the formula for calculating the average daily waste production in 1905 in Hong Kong reads (14x50.8)x126=89,611.2kg; that is, Hong Kong came close to a daily accumulation of 90 tons of waste per day during the early 1900s. Shanghai’s French Administration Municipale, in turn, documented its measurements slightly differently: 20 Janvier 1939. Za Fe Kang: 165.4 (camions), 156.4 (bateaux) Château d’Eau: 455.9 (camions), 426.2 (bateaux) Est: 112.5 (camions), 105.2 (bateaux)713

On its own, a piece of information like this is not specific enough to use in a calculation. However, the holdings of French Concession records at the Shanghai Municipal Archives provide sufficient reference to allow for a reconstruction of what is actually measured here, which, however, also require a decent amount of

712 PRO, HKRS 202-1-13. Again, the measuring unit “cwt” refers to the British hundredweight. 713 SMA, U38-4-3273. VII interpretation that needs comprehensive explanation. For example, various records reveal that the Administration Municipale measured waste production in cubic meters (m3) based on the volume capacity of the collection vehicles. One specific passage in a report on waste collection of 1929/1930 proposes to calculate 5.8kg for one cubic meter of collected waste. The passage also reads: “A Shanghai, il s’agit pour nous d’environ quarante mètres cubes par jour (ce chiffre est une moyenne et varie avec la saison) […], qu’il faut transporter fort loin à grand renfort de charroi[,] bateaux et, de main d’œuvre.”714 Applying this information in a formula, daily waste collection in the French Concession amounted to 40x5.8=232 kg during the time. Assuming that the relation of 5.8kg per cubic meter of collected waste did not change over the following years, this information can also be used to calculate the waste transported in the camions (lorries) and bateaux (boats) in the quotation on the previous page. Although it looks as if the measurements taken from lorries and boats were independent from one another, adding them up results in an unrealistically high amount of collected waste (5,324.0kg at Château d’Eau alone) while we already know that daily waste collection in 1929/30 was only 232 kg per day. Accordingly, we have to assume that the two measurements were simply taken at different points during the same round of collection, which included a transferal of waste material from lorries into boats. This transferal explains the ‘doubled’ display of relatively similar, yet slightly varying figures at each measuring station (Za Fe Kang715, Château d’Eau716, and Est717), with the value measured on the boats always a bit lower than on the lorries, which was possibly related to compression during transit.718 Due to its location directly on the French

714 SMA, U38-4-3034. The translation reads: “In Shanghai we have about forty cubic meters [of waste] per day (this figure is a mean value that varies with the seasons) […], which needs to be transported quite far out under the huge application of transport wagons, boats, and workforce.” 715 Although the original Chinese name of this small district in the French Concession could not be reconstructed, there is evidence that it was located by the Xujiahui (“Zikawei”) Creek near today’s Lujiabang (“Lokawei”) area. Cf. Conseil d’Administration Municipale de la Concession Française de Shanghai, Compte-rendu de la gestion pour l’exercice 1921—Budget 1922 (1921), 70. 716 The “Place du Château d’Eau” was a temporary, alternative place name for the southern part of the French Bund (Quai de France). Cf. French, Paul, The Old Shanghai A–Z, 216. 717 The “Est” district of the French Concessio was located between the eastern border of the (Chinese-administered) Walled City of Shanghai and the French Bund. Cf. “Plan de la Concession française de Changhai” (1934). Virtual Shanghai Database: Source Maps. 718 The assumption that the waste material had shrunk in volume during transfer from lorries to boats, resulting in two different figures for the same transport load, is de facto supported by another document: on July 7, 1937, the French Concession’s sanitary authorities noted that a total VIII South Bund, the author believes that Château d’Eau is likely to have been the final station of daily waste collection where transports from different district routes came together. It is not only the considerably higher figures measured at Château d’Eau that suggests this but also its proximity to the docks from which shipment to locations of final disposal or the countryside usually took place in Shanghai (cf. chapter 2.2.2 on waste collection strategies). If these assumptions are correct, then the figure that represents the total waste production on January 20, 1939 in the

French Concession would be the 426.2 m3 (2,472 kg) in the boats measured at Château d’Eau. Compared with the 232kg calculated previously for 1929/30, this figure certainly still appears a lot too high. However, as concerns waste collections, the measuring unit of the cubic meter is generally problematic when converted into kilograms: by logic, one cubic meter of waste can have a very different weight according to its density or liquid content.719 While a daily waste production of over two tons appears highly unrealistic—especially when compared to measurements taken in the International Settlement and Huajie areas around the same time—, the much lower figure of 232kg determined for 1929/1930 may just as well be too low. Although working with figures in the described way is obviously speculative, sometimes it is the only way in which any statement on waste production during the first half of the twentieth century in the three cities investigated can be made at all.

The following Table 5 corresponds with Figure 6 in the main text. All data in this table has been calculated by the author, taking the data on total population (Table 1) and the data on daily waste production (Table 3) in each city as a basis.

of 527.5m3 of waste had been collected on that day, but ultimately, only 394.5m3 were measured on the boats due to a tassement (“shrinking in size”) of 23.8% (SMA, U38-1-575). 719 Prior to mechanical drainage technology—which was, to the author’s knowledge, not used in Shanghai, Chengdu, or Hong Kong before the 1950s—, varying moisture content was another factor that was likely to have falsified or at least strongly influenced the measured volume of the collected waste. The same amount of waste may be significantly heavier or lighter, and more or less voluminous according to climatic influence, such as damp winter cold, rainy seasons, or great summer heat. Strictly speaking, figures on waste production can only be precisely compared if the waste matter is drained and dried to the same degree. As concerns the historical context presented in these sections, it cannot be taken for granted that this influencing factor on the weight or volume of waste was taken into account by the time witnesses wherever rounded numbers for annual waste accumulation are given. IX measuring unit: kg/day

Shanghai Hong Kong Chengdu

1950s 0.26 0.37 0.12

1960s 0.49 0.49

1970s 0.42 0.61 0.05

1980s 0.87 1.08 0.09

Table 5. Per Capita Daily Waste Production in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu, 1950s to 1980s

Miscellaneous Illustrations on Waste Collection and Treatment

Figure 7. Unloading Waste at Gin Drinkers Bay Refuse Dump, Hong Kong, ca. 1956. Source: PRO—Government Records Service, n.n.

Figure 8. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, 1953. Refuse Collection: By Baskets.” Source: HKMH Photo Collection: P1973.0026

Figure 9. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, 1958. Removal of Night-Soil from Premises and Flushing of Drains.” Source: HKMH Photo Collection: P1973.0070.

Figure 10. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, 1953. Refuse Collection: By Hand-cart”. Source: HKMH Photo Collection: P1973.0026

Figure 11. “Work of the Government Sanitary Department, 1953. Refuse Disposal. Refuse Barge Stations Where Refuse Is Unloaded Onto the Barges: Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po.” Source: HKMH Photo Collection: P1973.0043

XII

Figure 12. “Shanghai shi Weisheng ju banyun laji zhi qiche 上海市卫生局搬运垃圾之汽车 [Waste Transport Cars of the Shanghai Municipal Public Health Bureau.]” Source: Weisheng yuekan 卫生月刊 15 (1936): 167.

Figure 13. “Yong feitie feigang lai lian gang 用废铁废钢来炼钢 [Forging Steel from Waste Iron and Waste Steel].” Educative Illustration on National Metal Recycling. Source: Feiwu bu fei 废物不废 [Waste Not Wasted], 1958, 4.

XIII

Figure 14. “Da li shougou shougu—zengjia sheyuan shouru—zhiyuan guojia jingji jianshe! 大力收购兽骨——增加社员收入——支援国家经济建设 [Vigorously Purchase Animal Bones—Raise the Income of Every Member of Society—Help Build Our National Economy],” 1966.720 Antique propaganda poster, personal possession of the author.

720 Propaganda posters that promoted and explained national recycling methods—in this case, the many ways to use crushed animal bones as raw material—and socialist recycling spirit were common. A broader variety of such posters is presented and commented by Stefan Landsberger in Beijing Garbage, 39–45. XIV

Figure 15. “Feipin shi ge bao—yongchu zhen bu shao… Ben shi yizhi wuyue huishou de ji xiang zhuyao feipin de yongtu xiao tongji 废品是个宝— —用处真不少本市一至五月回收的几项主要废品的用途小统计 [Waste Is A Treasure with Quite A Lot of Use… A Small Statistic of the Extent to Which Our City Has Recycled Some Important Waste Categories During May].” Source: Chengdu ribao 成都日报 [Chengdu Daily], 22 June, 1959, 1.

Figure 16. “Jiji shouji chushou feipin—zhiyuan shehuizhuyi jianshe… Shi Feipin caigou gongyingzhan tiaozheng duozhong feipin shougou jiage 积极收集出售废品——支援社会主义建设市废品采购供应站调整多种废品收购价格 [Vigorously Collect and Sell Waste Items—Help to Establish Socialism… The Municipal Waste Purchase and Supply Station Has Adjusted the Purchasing Prices of Various Waste Categories].” Source: Chengdu ribao 成都日报 [Chengdu Daily], 23 July, 1959, 2.

Figure 17. Informal Recyclers in Late Qing Chengdu: Scavenger (shouhuang 収荒), rag and charcoal picker (jian bujin ji tanhua 捡布筋及炭花), glass collector (shouboli 收玻璃), newspaper collector (shouzizhi 收字纸) (left to right, top to bottom). Source: Fu, Chengdu tonglan 成都通览 [A General Overview on Chengdu], 1908, 198, 202, 203.

XVI Eigenständigkeitserklärung

Ich erkläre, dass ich die vorgelegte Arbeit ohne unzulässige Hilfe Dritter und ohne Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel angefertigt habe. Die aus Quellen direkt oder indirekt übernommenen Daten und Konzepte sind unter Angabe der Quelle gekennzeichnet. Bei der Auswahl und Auswertung von Material haben mir die nachstehenden Personen in der jeweils beschriebenen Weise unentgeltlich geholfen: - Cui Longhao 崔龙浩, Doktorand am Historischen Seminar der East China Normal University (Shanghai): Transkription einzelner kursiver Handschriften aus den Sichuan Provincial Archives.

- Jiang Hong 姜鸿, Doktorand am Historischen Seminar der East China Normal University (Shanghai): Transkription einzelner kursiver Handschriften aus den Chengdu Municipal Archives.

Weitere Personen waren an der inhaltlichen und materiellen Erstellung der vorgelegten Arbeit nicht beteiligt. Insbesondere habe ich hierfür nicht die entgeltliche Hilfe von Vermittlungs- bzw. Beratungsdiensten, Promotionsberatern oder anderen Personen in Anspruch genommen. Niemand hat von mir unmittelbar oder mittelbar geldwerte Leistungen für Arbeiten erhalten, die im Zusammenhang mit dem Inhalt der Dissertation stehen. Die Arbeit wurde bisher weder im Inland noch im Ausland in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form einer anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt. Ich versichere, dass ich diese Erklärung nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen abgebe und nichts verschwiegen habe. Die strafrechtlichen Folgen einer unrichtigen oder unvollständigen Erklärung sind mir bekannt.

————————————————— Bochum, den 20.12.2019

Erklärung zur Datenspeicherung

Hiermit stimme ich der Speicherung und Verwertung der für ein Hochschul- und Zentralregister derjenigen Personen, die ordnungsgemäß den Doktortitel erworben haben, erforderlichen persönlichen Daten zu.

————————————————— Bochum, den 20.12.2019

CURRICULUM VITAE

Zur Person: Nele Fabian geb. am 24.01.1986 in Essen Email: [email protected]

Ausbildungs- und Berufsweg:

09.2017–02.2018 Forschungsaufenthalt an der East China Normal University, Shanghai und der Sichuan University, Chengdu, V.R. China.

03.2016–07.2016 Forschungsaufenthalt an der University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

11.2014– Promotionsstudium im Fach Chinesische Philosophie und Geschichte an der Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, betreut durch Prof. Dr. Christine Moll-Murata und Sen. Prof. Dr. Heiner Roetz.

05.2013–12.2015 Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft am Kulturwissenschaftlichen Institut Essen (KWI).

04.2011–04.2013 Studentische Hilfskraft am Kulturwissenschaftlichen Institut Essen (KWI).

03.2010–07.2010 Auslandssemester an der Sichuan University, Chengdu, V.R. China.

01.2010–05.2013 Studium des Fachs Chinesische Philosophie und Geschichte an der Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften, Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Abschluss mit einem 1-Fach-Master of Arts (Gesamtnote 1,3).

04.2006–02.2010 Studentische Hilfskraft an der Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften, Sektion Geschichte und Philosophie Chinas. Aufgaben: Editionsarbeiten an Publikationen der Sektion.

10.2005–12.2009 Studium der Fächer Sinologie und Politik, Wirtschaft & Gesellschaft an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Abschluss mit einem 2-Fach-Bachelor of Arts (Gesamtnote 1,2).

09.2002–06.2003 Einjähriger Schüleraustausch in Budapest, Ungarn: Besuch des Teleki Blanka Gimnáziums, Budapest.

09.1996–07.2005 Besuch des Gymnasiums Essen-Werden, Essen. Abschluss mit dem Abitur (Note 1,7).

09.1992– 07.1996 Besuch der Grundschule (Heckerschule in Essen).