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Q: Was China always so dirty?
Everyone sees the litter everywhere. But is that a recent phenomenon or have Chinese always had other people cleaning up after them? When I ask locals no one seems to know. For some reason, when I ask about events pre-1949, no one seems to know much. Hmmm....
I understand that Chinese don't care about what is not in their circle, hence the littering. The litter never really bothered me as I was amazed at the (mostly) women sweeping the city, every where each day. Then pushing all the carp away in 3 wheeled bikes and how quick things get cleaned. This cleaning never happens at home. In the country I notice a lot of litter. I once saw an entire bay in a village have floating bottle ties and plastic bags covering it. This litter is from the same sources as our litter, disposable food wrapping and plastics from food products, Prior to 1949 non f these products existed. I really think the manufacturers should foot some of the bill for cleanup, they create the market. At home with paying for garbage pickup, public garbage cans are becoming a thing of the past. You have to litter, but there is no street sweepers.
Paying for garbage pick up is one of my big beefs at home. I pay taxes, the Gov. wastes my money and then decides to charge for services. I've never put a kid in school, but I support schools thru my property tax. The cost for garbage pick up was originally to help keep the amount down so more recycling, then the fees go up and up. They have to hire people to drive around and make sure you are paying for garbage tags. This just promotes more littering, but where we had garbage pick up, not you will find garbage dumping along roads. Low income (welfare scum) just fill the yards up of their rental property with trash.
China has 10000 times more people to litter, but at least in cities it does get cleaned up.
In my wife's village there was piles of garbage lining the the streets. disgusting.
TedDBayer:
I saw a town on TV, can't remember the name cause it's Chnese, they recycle 50% of the worlds compters there. I could not believe the crap piled up every where and most of it toxic.
all i can say its 1960s early 70s los angeles when u could not see the san gabrel mountains which were 4 miles away
I very rarely see litter, I see littering but usually within a minute one of the horde of street sweepers descends and cleans it up, heck I've even seen those women cleaning up single cigarette butts.
As a slightly related aside, why do you think cowboys wore boots and that boots were so fashionable amongst men and women in Victorian London? The cowboys rode horses yes, but the other reason was the 'streets' weren't paved they were just earth which turned to mud in winter and as the main form of transport was the horse that mud wasn't 'just' mud, same with London, but in addition to the horses deposits up until quite recent times it was a normal happening to empty your chamberpot out of your bedroom window in the morning and let 'nature' sweep it down to the river, hence the need for boots to walk in.
Scandinavian:
...Britain, despite a puny short history of just a bit more than 1000 years, managed to evolve as the shit in the streets of London was a serious health-threat to the people and was stopping further development.
Hugh.G.Rection:
A thousand!!! How outrageous! The Romans invaded in 47AD and we can trace our history back before that! Two thousand year history please! 
Scandinavian:
the first king of Britain was Æthelstan in 927 AD. If you want to claim a decent running time for your country I would quote wikipedia saying that there is evidence of human presence in Britain 780000 years ago.
Hugh.G.Rection:
I was joking that was supposed to be mock outrage hence the winking emoticon.
However, history of a nation is not limited to having a king, and btw there has never been a King of Britain, the Roman invasion is recorded history and that was actually AD43 (I was 4 years out).
Scandinavian:
a lot of my knowledge of British history comes from Blackadder, so some ignorance is to be expected. Still, a thousand years is imprssive compared to e.g. countries founded as recently as 1949.
Littering in the street is only a minor problem. Who cleans up after kids defecate and men urinate in the street and wherever else suits them? Who cleans up the spitting everywhere? Who cleans up the contaminated soils that used to contain factories, and now contain high rises and apartment buildings. Who cleans up the polluted and littered rivers? Is anybody cleaning the air in the cities, which has now reached toxic levels? And where to start with food hygiene?
And no, I don't think the fact that London was dirty 100 years ago is justification in the modern era to replicate and surpass the problems that city had back then. Is China a special case that doesn't need to learn from others' mistakes?
Who knows? there are not many people anywhere who can recall conditions prior to 1949.
as manufacturing leaves for cheaper labor and china moves to a service economy , the pollution will go down along with building more nuclear reactors.
the dirty cities and trash , bathrooms , this is a whole different story, i dont think the people are dirty , but the shortage of water is severe. some countries can have window washers clean skyscrapers every day, china could never do this
i read a un report years ago that said china has an average of 471 liters of water per person per year, this includes water used for industry and farming.
very hard to clean when you have no water which might explain the dirty mops still be used to mop again in many schools ive witnessed.
china is building desalization plants and diverting water but im not sure this is enough to clean up the country. perhaps this problem has no solution.
Scandinavian:
It is probably cubic meters rather than liters
http://chartsbin.com/view/1455
I saw a news report recently that Beijingers use twice the amount of water per person than people in my home capital.
