Will the nearly 10,000 cubic meters of soil become a "broken window"? There is a clever way to solve the problem. The construction waste dump has been "idle" for five years.

On the morning of May 29, Zhang Genlian, a villager from Xinzhang Village, Qingcun Town, Fengxian District, breathed a sigh of relief after passing through the green steel plate fence and stepping on the mound of dregs covered with dust-proof nets: “This wasteland is finally managed. I heard that all the garbage will be removed in the first half of the year. By then, more than 100 residents will open their doors and windows and look out, and the view will be much wider! "

The "wasteland" that Zhang Genlian refers to is actually a 9.4-acre planned reserved land at the southern end of the building site for the villagers of Xizhang Group 5 in Xinzhang Village. From 2016 to 2019, it became a place where surrounding farmers temporarily piled earthwork and construction waste when building houses, gradually forming a mound with a height of 1.5 to 2 meters.

On May 29, a fence was set up around the yard and a dustproof net was covered above. Photographed by Chen Xishan

Waste from demolished houses can be seen in the dirt. Photographed by Chen Xishan

Since 2019, this mound has basically remained in its original state, and problems have arisen. On May 14 this year, a mass petition report forwarded to Fengxian District by the Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Inspection Group No. 1 revealed that there is a muck dump mixed with construction waste at the south end of the new base built by farmers in Xizhang Group 5, Xinzhang Village, Qingcun Town. It has become a garbage dump. When it rains, the rainwater seeping out of the mound is black and smelly, seriously affecting the living environment of surrounding residents.

Fengxian District's greening and city appearance, urban management and law enforcement departments and Qingcun Town immediately sent personnel to conduct on-site inspections and found that the situation was partly true. The amount of earth piled on site was estimated to be 9,800 cubic meters, and a small amount of domestic waste that was not placed in accordance with regulations was exposed in some areas. However, no puddles or standing water were found.

Could it be that things look fine on the surface, but are actually failing? Environmental monitoring personnel selected two sites and used an excavator to take samples deep into the mound. They found that the materials making up the mound were mainly garbage from house demolition and foundation earth excavated during house construction, with very little domestic garbage mixed in. .

The environmental department has also conducted risk assessments for pollutants invisible to the naked eye and their impact on the surrounding areas. The report released on May 29 shows that a total of 65 indicators were tested for heavy metals such as arsenic and lead as well as organic matter such as methyl chloride and vinyl chloride in the soil and groundwater. All results were in line with the quality standards for residential land soil and groundwater.

Environmental monitoring units sample groundwater. Photographed by Chen Xishan

At present, Qingcun Town has set up temporary fences at the boundary of the temporary construction waste dumping site to prevent secondary pollution. Qingcun Town stated that it will complete the standardized disposal before June 30 this year and restore the mound to its original state.

"On the one hand, we will adopt a greener and more environmentally friendly disposal method, making full use of muck, waste stone, waste bricks, etc. to reduce disposal costs." Jiang Qiuping, deputy mayor of Qingcun Town, said that a qualified third-party disposal company will be entrusted , classify all types of garbage in the mound, and send the separated stones, bricks, ceramic tiles, etc. to the construction waste resource recycling project in Fengxian District, and dispose of them as much as possible in Fengxian District. Recently, the Puxing Highway widening project has become very interested in the crushed aggregates of construction waste.

On the other hand, Qingcun Town is also reflecting on how to further strengthen the refined management of "wasteland". Jiang Qiuping said that for this key area, 7 groups of video surveillance have been deployed near the border, and staff responsible for recycling rural domestic waste and supervising waste classification will patrol along the way every day to see if there are any littering in the yard. Domestic waste, but it is difficult to ensure 24-hour effective control only by manpower. As long as there is a piece of domestic garbage that should not appear in this yard, it will form a "broken window effect", and some surrounding residents will also throw domestic garbage in.

Keeping "wasteland" from becoming wasteland may be a clever way to solve the "broken window effect". Six or seven years ago, Shanghai tried planting grass and flowers on more than a dozen temporarily idle reserve lands in Changning, Minhang, Qingpu, Pudong and other districts. By sowing flower seeds and waiting for several months, the wasteland gradually turned into a sea of ​​flowers. This low-investment greening method can kill two birds with one stone. It can not only solve the dust problem of bare soil in wastelands, but also beautify the city and "light up" the gray space around the people. When the reserve land is reused, the flowers have already completed their mission, and the collected flower seeds can still be used as waste heat in other wastelands.

Wei Jiang, deputy director of the Environmental Sanitation Office of the Fengxian District Greening and Appearance Bureau, said that after the standardized disposal is completed in the first half of this year, after the soil piles are bulldozed and all the debris is removed, low-cost green coverage will be considered to deal with the "broken windows effect" , the specific form to be adopted must fully listen to the opinions of surrounding residents.

The current measures are mainly blockades. There are residential areas more than ten meters away from the stalls. Photographed by Chen Xishan

The current measures are mainly blockades. The picture shows the monitoring around the yard. Photographed by Chen Xishan