"The grasslands and lakes are the same, the cities and villages are the same, the villages and the countryside are the same, the neighbors are the same, the front and back of the house are the same, the indoors and outdoors are the same, the day and night are the same"... This is the requirement for "cleanliness and tidiness" when the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province created the "Whole-Region Garbage-Free Demonstration Zone", and it is also the result that is now showing.

Gannan is an important ecological security barrier and water conservation area in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. In 2015, Gannan Prefecture took the opportunity of creating a whole-region tourism demonstration zone to declare war on "dirty, messy and poor" according to local conditions, and launched a massive "environmental revolution" throughout the region.

After years of governance, Gannan has not only successfully created a "whole-region garbage-free" demonstration prefecture that demonstrates the entire Gansu province and leads China, but also paved a path of ecological green development to guide herdsmen to a well-off life.

Start the battle of governance

Walking on the Gannan grassland, under the blue sky and white clouds, the villages with strong Tibetan characteristics, clean streets and alleys and natural scenery are integrated. On the grassland stands a large billboard "You have entered the demonstration area of garbage-free tourism in the whole region".

"The garbage along the road is cleaned by sanitation workers. Our main target is the garbage along the 433 kilometers of the Yellow River in Maqu County." Zhuoma Gabu from Darqing Village, Oula Township, Maqu County said that he is planning to go to the Yellow River to pick up garbage.

Since 2003, Zhuoma Gabu has spontaneously started to clean up garbage on the grassland. In 2012, after having some savings, he joined the team of voluntary governance of grassland desertification and became an out-and-out Maqu grassland ecological and environmental protection defender.

"Last year, we collected garbage along the Yellow River for 43 consecutive days. Plastic bags, cans and other garbage were all washed down by the river." Zhuoma Gabu said, "We picked up garbage spontaneously, and there were dozens of people each time."

Gannan Prefecture is an important water source conservation area in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, but the former Gannan grassland had a poor environment in villages and courtyards because of the continuation of nomadic production and living styles in farming and pastoral villages, and the mixing of people and animals.

In the first half of 2015, Gannan Prefecture launched a large-scale comprehensive environmental improvement campaign across the prefecture, and determined the goal of comprehensive improvement of urban and rural environmental sanitation to make the 45,000 square kilometers of green mountains and clear waters and grasslands "garbage-free throughout the region."

Subsequently, Gannan Prefecture, counties and townships took the creation of sanitary cities as the standard, started from solving the outstanding problems, and started from five aspects: urban and rural environmental sanitation, tourist scenic area environment, river water environment, ecological environmental pollution, and urban management environment. They adhered to the working idea of "ground first, facade later, ground driving facade, facade improving ground; city first, village later, city driving village, village boosting city", and launched a tough battle to cure "dirty", "polluted" and "disorderly" and to carry out a comprehensive urban environmental improvement campaign.

With the continuous advancement of the rectification action, the local people changed from "I have to rectify" at the beginning to "I want to rectify" ideological and behavioral consciousness.

In order to promote ecological environmental protection sustainably, Gannan Prefecture has successively formulated and issued policies and regulations, improved and perfected a set of closed-loop operation systems for long-term management, and promoted the "environmental revolution" to a standardized, institutionalized and legalized track. Adhere to the inclusion of the "environmental revolution" into the grid management system and village rules and regulations, divide the responsibility areas, clarify the responsible parties, strengthen the constraints and norms, promote the normalization, long-term and refined operation of the rectification work, and ensure that the garbage does not fall to the ground and is not cleared overnight.

Nowadays, Gannan's "garbage-free" has achieved initial results, brightening the ecological background and giving birth to high-quality development formats.

Extending to towns and villages

Collecting domestic garbage from the town and the four nearby villages is the daily work of Li Fugui, a garbage collection driver in Yeliguan Town, Lintan County, Gannan Prefecture.

"We have four garbage trucks, two large and two small, responsible for clearing garbage around the town, and there are special garbage trucks for remote villages." Li Fugui said.

At the domestic garbage pyrolysis treatment center in Yeliguan Town, Lintan County, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province, staff are loading domestic garbage transported from towns into low-temperature pyrolysis processors for harmless treatment.

"The amount of harmless garbage disposal is about 8 tons every day." Song Tao, deputy mayor of Yeliguan Town, said that the garbage thermal treatment center has two low-temperature pyrolysis processors, each of which has a daily processing capacity of 6 tons. All the domestic garbage from 9 villages and one community in the jurisdiction of Yeliguan Town is transferred here for harmless treatment by smoldering, cracking and reducing the amount.

In Luqu County, garbage collection and transportation vehicles, garbage bins, garbage boxes and garbage kiosks with four-category signs in Tibetan and Chinese can be seen everywhere in towns and streets.

"Batteries and printer cartridges are all hazardous waste." The main task of the garbage collection and transportation manager of the second phase of the urban domestic garbage landfill in Luqu County, Gannan Prefecture, is to supervise garbage classification and vehicle transportation every day.

"We have basically opened up the three links of four-category garbage collection, transportation and treatment, laying the foundation for the special governance work of "garbage-free in the whole region" such as garbage reduction and resource utilization." Zhou Long, deputy director of the Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau of Urban Management of Luqu County, said that the garbage in the towns around the county seat is roughly sorted by sanitation workers and then transported to the county seat for fine classification and then treatment. The second phase of the urban domestic waste landfill in Luqu County has been completed, passed acceptance and put into use. The garbage sorting room and garbage baling machine configured in the landfill are under construction and installation. The leachate treatment equipment equipped has reached the drinking water level after treatment.

The garbage sorting and treatment in Yeliguan Town, Lintan County and Luqu County is a microcosm of Gannan Prefecture's solution to the problem of garbage treatment.

Garbage-free in the whole region, garbage sorting and treatment is both a problem and a key. Gannan Prefecture insists on the integrated management of urban and rural domestic waste, keeps a close eye on the lagging shortcomings of rural harmless treatment facilities, and continuously extends the tentacles of rectification from cities to rural areas, from rivers to river banks, from houses to rural households, from roads to the hinterland of grasslands, and from garbage cleaning to garbage classification and vegetation restoration. It achieves full coverage in space, leaving no blind spots, and thoroughly eliminates various existing stubborn diseases.

Today, 50 urban harmless treatment facilities have been built in the prefecture, including 31 harmless sanitary landfills and 19 high-temperature incineration stations, with a daily processing capacity of more than 845 tons. The coverage rate of rural domestic waste collection and transportation facilities in the prefecture has reached 100%, and the coverage rate of administrative villages for harmless treatment of domestic waste has reached 92%.

Resist white pollution

Plastic bags are not seen in shops and stalls on the Maqu grassland, where the "plastic ban" has been implemented for 20 years.

"Plastic bags pollute the environment, and cattle and sheep have died from eating them by mistake." Liu Chunwu, a business owner in Maqu County, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province, said with emotion, "Only by recognizing the harm of plastic bags to grasslands can we ban them from action."

Liu Chunwu has been running a department store in Maqu County since 1998. He is a witness to the "plastic ban" in Maqu County. At first, he was also a negative example of violating the "plastic ban" initiative.

In 2002, Maqu County had already tried to ban the use and sale of disposable plastic products such as plastic bags, plastic films, and plastic tableware, and strictly controlled "white pollution". At that time, Liu Chunwu, who was used to using plastic bags, did not take it seriously, and became a negative example during the inspection by the industrial and commercial department. After understanding the various hazards of plastic bags, Liu Chunwu realized that he was wrong.

Liu Chunwu said that after the "plastic ban", he began to use newspapers for packaging, and now uses degradable plastic bags. As long as it is beneficial to environmental protection, he supports it.

Since 2015, the Gannan Prefecture government has decided to implement a "plastic ban" throughout the prefecture. Last year, on the basis of the "plastic ban", Gannan Prefecture raised standards and expanded the scope, promoted the reduction of plastics at the source, promoted the application of plastic alternatives, strengthened recycling and disposal, and banned the production, sale and use of plastic shopping bags, non-degradable plastic bags, disposable plastic cotton swabs, disposable plastic tableware, disposable plastic straws, daily chemical products containing plastic microbeads, and polyethylene agricultural mulch that does not meet the national mandatory standards. Hotels, hotels, homestays, supermarkets, scenic spots and other places restrict the active provision of disposable plastic products.

At the same time, the production, sale and use of some plastic products are banned and restricted, the consumption of disposable plastic products has been significantly reduced, alternative products have been used, and the proportion of plastic waste resource utilization has increased. The recycling rate of waste agricultural film has reached 82%.

"Our goal is to ban or restrict the production, sale and use of some plastic products in the whole region by 2025. We will establish and improve the management system for the production, circulation, consumption, recycling and disposal of plastic products, basically establish a multi-governance system, and greatly improve the level of promotion and application of alternative products. We will basically achieve full recycling of waste agricultural film. We will initially form a replicable and popularizable plastic reduction and green logistics model, significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste landfill in the whole prefecture, and resolutely curb plastic pollution." said Huang Yun, deputy director of the Gannan Prefecture Market Supervision Bureau.

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