This performance from Nanjing, China and the 2nd Youth Olympic Games is mind-blowing. Like, literally. You’ll never get it out of you head! How in the world did they do this? 

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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According to a recent United Nations report, China has become the e-waste dumping ground of the world. It’s second only to the U.S. in the amount of electronic trash made up of refrigerators, old laptops, computers, and televisions that get dumped there every year. In a village outside of Beijing, families depend on e-waste recycling to make a living.

Dongxiaokou village is a hub for e-waste recycling. Villagers collect the trash, including old air conditioners, televisions, and refrigerators from Beijing and bring their finds back to Dongxiaokou to be broken down. Several hundred families gather e-waste, but no one knows how many for sure because much of it is done by undocumented migrant workers.

According to CNN, “Many of these gadgets were initially manufactured in China. Through a strange twist of global economics, much of this electronic junk returns to China to die.” The e-waste is taken apart and fixed before being sold to wholesale dealers for resale. If they cannot be fixed, they’re beaten apart with hammer and axe and then sold for scraps. Families can earn about $8 for an air conditioner, a tiny amount for an abundance of work.

Such wide scale e-waste recycling contaminates both the workers and the village itself. The small village stream has been polluted with toxins from breaking down old appliances and children play amongst heaps of trash. According to The Washington Post, “Those in the business in Dongxiaokou grapple with poor infrastructure and sanitation facilities, in addition to dangers associated with handling the waste. The village is now facing demolition as part of an urbanization plan, and residents are worried about losing their homes and work.”

When such recycling is done without the proper equipment and safety protocols in place, it can have damaging repercussions, but for these villagers, there is just no other way to make a living.

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Beijing artist sells a glass jar of fresh French air at auction for $860. The move signifies the problems with Beijing air quality.

Can we put a price tag on something as invaluable as fresh air? Apparently, yes. And it happened.

Beijing-based artist Liang Kegang auctioned off a small glass jar filled with fresh air from Province, France. And the going price? $860.

While on a recent trip to the south of France, Liang couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a statement in response to the detrimental state of Beijing’s air quality issue. He photographed himself ‘filling’ the ‘clean south of France air’ into the jar on March 29, 2014. The jar sold at an auction on March 30 to Chengdu-based artist and entrepreneur Li Yongzheng.

Beijing, a city home to twenty-one million people, is one of the world’s most polluted cities. Extremely highs levels of thick smog constantly pose serious health issues to Beijing’s citizens. As the chart below shows, since April 2008, there has only been 184 days total where air quality levels were considered good.

Six years of Beijing air pollution summed up. image: Quartz

“Air should be the most valueless commodity, free to breathe for any vagrant or beggar,” Liang said in an interview. “This is my way to question China’s foul air and express my dissatisfaction.”

featured image: Sunset Noir and Home Naturals

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China recently admitted that rampant soil pollution is a significant threat to the global food supply.

In the final days of 2013, Chinese officials made an alarming announcement: in addition to the country’s terrifying levels of air and water pollution, soil pollution has now become a threat to public safety.

During a news conference, Wang Shiyuan, a deputy minister of the Ministry of Land and Resources, admitted that poor oversight of heavy metals and other chemicals has contaminated more than 8 million acres of China’s farmland, rendering it practically useless. Some scientists have placed the estimated total as high as 60 million acres, though levels of soil pollution may be less severe in some areas.

Last year, China’s air pollution problem became national knowledge. Smog levels that blocked out the sun, forcing many Chinese citizens to stay indoors or wear breathing masks, made national headlines. The country has been notoriously lax with its environmental regulations, willing to sacrifice public safety for industrial production. But this news that significant portions of its farmland could be unsafe for cultivation may force tighter rules.

According to the Huffington Post, widespread soil pollution is the result of overuse of farm chemicals and the government’s willingness to establish farms close to chemical plants, mines and other heavy industries. Unfortunately, “cleaning up rural regions could be an even bigger challenge as the government tries to reverse damage done by years of urban and industrial encroachment and ensure food supplies for a growing population,” reported Reuters.

Although Wang admitted that farming cannot continue on the 8 million contaminated areas, it’s uncertain what can be done to reclaim this valuable farmland. According to Reuters, Wang “told a news briefing that China was determined to rectify the problem and had committed ‘tens of billions of yuan’ a year to pilot projects aimed at rehabilitating contaminated land and underground water supplies.”

Remediation might be China’s problem, but the consequences of soil contamination are a concern for the entire world. Many global suppliers of food, like Unilever, Nestle source ingredients from Chinese suppliers, due to the low price and high volume.

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Image: net_efekt

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China is doubling-down on synthetic natural gas in hopes of reducing air pollution. But is this new natural gas any cleaner?

A study published in Nature last month investigated the finer details of China’s recent approval of nine synthetic natural gas power plants (with plans to build 4o more).

As you may know, China is facing an extreme air pollution problem. Government officials say the large-scale synthetic natural gas plants will curb the countries air pollution issues, but the claim is under scrutiny by the scientific community.

To create synthetic natural gas one must essentially turn coal into a liquid energy source.  Extreme heat and steam used to convert mined coal to synthetic gas that can essentially be transported through pipelines, much like traditional natural gas and oil.

Synthetic natural gas is nothing new, as of 2010 China already had 56 plants in operation.  The United State has one too. It’s called the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in North Dakota, and it began operating in 1984 (yes, the date is creepy).

China has often pointed to the North Dakota plant as a success story and claim to have modeled their synthetic natural gas on its production. What they don’t mention, however, is the drastically different scale. China’s plants will fabricate a total capacity of 37.1 billion cubic meters synthetic natural gas each year. By comparison, the Great Plains Synfuels Plant produces just 1.5 billions cubic meters a year.

Transforming coal into synthetic natural gas is extremely energy and water intensive, so why would China be investing in this energy resource?

It actually takes more energy and water to make synthetic natural gas than simply burning coal itself. In fact, the previously mentioned study reported using synthetic natural gas to create electricity will lead to 36 percent to 82 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than simply burning coal. The report concludes China’s plants would “produce seven times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional natural gas plants and will use up to 100 times the water as shale gas production.”

Although it’s more energy intensive, using synthetic natural gas to create electricity doesn’t emit as much smog and particulate matter as burning coal. Chinese cities has been under extreme attack by environmental organizations and citizens alike to address the sickeningly dense and ever present air pollution.

All the new synthetic natural gas power plants will be built in far west regions of China around inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. These locations are far enough away from the major that cities that, at least in theory, the plants closer to the cities could shut down, and reducing smog and air pollution in urban areas. These plants might create conditions for less particulate matter being pumped into the atmosphere but the energy and water demands only continue to rise.

Synthetic natural gas might be fixing one issue, but it is undoubtedly creating more. How effective can this patchwork approach be?

Robert B. Jackson, second author on the recent study, Nicholas Professor of Environmental Sciences, and director of the Duke Center on Global Change, says, “Using coal to make natural gas may be good for China’s energy security, but it’s an environmental disaster in the making.”

 Image: Jonathan Kos-Read

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The USDA approved four Chinese plants to process chicken that will be sold in the U.S. without any country of origin labeling. Prior to this decision chicken sourced from China was not approved for human consumption in the U.S., only for animal consumption. The fact that 2,200 animals became ill and nearly 360 died as a result of eating tainted jerky treats made with chicken sourced from China didn’t seem to phase the USDA. Are humans next?

Though the USDA claims there is equivalent food quality standard at Chinese plants, no USDA inspector will be present to make sure it’s being enforced.

“Given the well-documented shortcoming of the Chinese food safety system, we shouldn’t allow unmarked meat into our markets that is processed in Chinese facilities that are not subject to food safety inspections,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, reports Food Safety News. “This action could endanger the health and safety of American consumers and potentially undermines confidence in our nation’s food safety standards.”

Did USDA Officials Cut a Deal?

Chicken sourced from China had formerly been blocked by lawmakers because of that country’s troubles with avian flu. Despite questions about quality standards, some feel that U.S. officials are willing to look the other way on chicken imports so that China will lift restrictions on U.S. beef. Of course, U.S. officials deny such a motivation. China currently imports its beef primarily from Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Canada because of concerns about mad cow disease in U.S. beef.

It’s important to note that the chicken imported from China will only have been processed there–it will be raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or elsewhere. This only calls into question the dark underbelly of chicken production in the U.S.

According to Salon.com, “The vast majority of the almost 300 million egg-laying hens raised in the U.S. every year are kept in cages too small for them to spread their wings, and this practice is beginning to take hold in raising our 8 billion broilers (the ones we eat) as well. The broilers are fed a diet laden with arsenic and antibiotics.” Additionally, a 2009 USDA study found that 87 percent of chicken cadavers were laden with e. coli [PDF].

Antibiotics and Environmental Devastation

Chickens forced to live in horrific conditions can only be kept healthy with inordinate amounts of antibiotics. It’s these antibiotics, used to both fend off disease and to fatten up chickens prematurely, that are causing antibiotic resistance. Each year, more than two million people are infected by drug-resistant germs and 23,000 die of their infections. Overtime, the constant use of low doses of antibiotics allow the surviving bacteria to become resistant, which creates the superbugs that are making us sicker and sicker each year.

And we haven’t even started to discuss the environmental pollution caused by chicken production in the U.S. Producers dispose of manure by spreading it on open fields or cropland. It’s over applied and dangerously managed, contaminating soil and creating water-quality problems.

“In just over 50 years, the broiler industry has been transformed from more than one million small farms spread across the country to a  limited number of massive factory-style operations concentrated in 15 states,” said Karen Steuer, who directs Pew’s efforts to reform industrial animal agriculture, in a 2011 statement. “This growth has harmed the environment, particularly water, because management programs for chicken waste have not kept pace with output.”

The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. Though U.S. chicken production is the devil we do know, it shouldn’t be a beacon of hope either. Chicken newly sourced from China as well as an already problematic industrial chicken complex are all the more reasons to buy organic and even better, buy from small, local producers whenever possible.

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Image: qmnonic

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China’s urban air pollution went off the charts this past winter, and the world took notice. With aggressive policies on the books, is this industrial giant finally admitting that health is more important than production? 

In a list of the world’s most polluted nations, China is a shoe-in. An accelerated pace of development–including dozens of new textile mills, rubber and fertilizer plants, oil refineries and coal-fired power plants–has left many of China’s cities covered in a thick blanket of life-choking smog.

In early 2013, Beijing made global headlines when NASA images showed the city almost completely obscured in a cloud of airborne particular visible from space. Residents were urged to wear gas masks and advised to stay indoors as much as possible.

No nation, especially one so interested in foreign manufacturing contracts, can afford that type of publicity. So, at least at the legislative level, China has recently announced sweeping changes that could clean up the rampant air pollution and go a long way toward creating healthier cities for its residents.

1. Big Investment

In late July, China’s state media announced a government plan to invest 1.7 trillion yuan ($277 billion) to combat air pollution over the next five years. Citing growing social discontent with China’s air quality as a motivating factor, a government report laid out plans to reduce air emissions by 25 percent by 2017 compared with 2012 levels, especially focusing on urban areas like Beijing.

2. Gasoline Tax

People complain about expensive gas the world over, as if cheap fossil fuels were some kind of human right. They’re not. In fact, countries like America use taxpayer dollars to dish up deep subsidies to Big Oil and Coal. These subsidies are some of the only reasons our gas prices have been so much lower than the rest of the world’s for decades. If people had to pay the true price of gas, they’d probably stop driving so much.

That’s the assumption that led China’s government to unveil a fuel pollution tax that will be added to standard gas prices sometime in the next 12 months. Under current tax law, a liter of gas (about a third of a gallon) is around 8 yuan or $1.30. When the pollution tax is added, a liter of gas will cost ten yuan, or $1.62. This brings it up to about $4.50 a gallon. If this pollution tax is successful in Beijing, the government plans to implement it across the country.

3. Electric Vehicles

As America has so willingly demonstrated, it’s not easy to get a nation of oil-addicted drivers to make the switch to greener vehicles. We like our big engines and our independence. China is the same way, only they have 1.35 billion people to the USA’s 316 million. To help ease the pain of transitioning away from fossil fuels, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology’s (MOST) announced a Five-Year Plan for Electric Vehicles, actively encouraging its citizens to buy electric bikes, scooters, and cars. The nation is targeting 5 million EVs and PHEVs on the road by 2020, although progress has been slower than desired. 

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Walking becomes a form of art.

Let’s say you’re the first environmental protection non-profit operating in a country with the largest market for cars in the whole world. Let’s say your country’s air pollution problems are getting out of control. Let’s say you want to hammer home the pollution-busting value of walking.

Let’s say you have gallons of  non-toxic, washable, quick-drying green paint.

If you’re Jody Xiong, working with China’s Environmental Protection Foundation, you do this: paint a leafless tree onto a 7-meter wide, 12-meter long white canvas, and lay it over a pedestrian crossing on a busy city street. Next, lay paint-soaked sponges on either sidewalk, so every time a pedestrian crossed the street, they left a trail of green footprints across the canvas…

…making the tree bloom with color.

The symbolism is clear – the more you walk, the greener everything gets – and from its initial pilot on 7 main streets of Shanghai, that message was carried to 132 roads in 15 cities across China, with an estimated 3.92 million participants. A follow-up survey pointed to a sharp rise in eco-awareness in the targeted areas (and to underline the message further, one of the green-trodden canvases is now hanging in the Shanghai’s Zheng Da Museum of Modern Art).

Sometimes a lot of tiny steps can add up to one great big one.

Images: Bored Panda & DDB China

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Got milk? You don’t have to just drink it. 

Love it or hate it, milk has a place not only in your diet but also in your tool box and cleaning closet as well as among your toiletries. Raw goat milk, in its unadulterated and probiotic-heavy state, is the best to use. But seeing that unpasteurized milk is outlawed for sale almost everywhere in the U.S., pasteurized goat milk is second best. While not all milks are created equally, you can use any animal milk to successfully benefit from these tips. From curing a hangover to tending to those stained linens, milk has got your back.

Appetite Suppressant

To prevent overeating at mealtime, drink a glass of milk 15 minutes beforehand. Milk fills you up and gives you enough protein – 1 cup of non-fat milk contains 8.26 grams of protein – to keep you feeling fuller and less inclined to go overboard when food is served.

Hair Conditioner and Mask

With its vitamin and mineral content, milk works great on smoothing and shining your hair. Rinse your hair with fresh milk and let it sit wet for a few minutes before rinsing with water. You could also mix powdered milk with water to form a paste and then comb through hair, letting it to sit for at least 5 minutes before washing out.

Hangover Cure

Milk helps to settle the stomach, rehydrate the system, and raise blood sugar levels. These make it a great morning-after hangover cure. Additionally, milk contains the amino acid cysteine, which is known to neutralize a lethal dose of acetaldehyde, which is an alcohol metabolite.

Fish Freshener

Place frozen fish in a milk bath and let sit until the fish thaws. The milk makes the fish taste fresher.

Make-Up Remover

Mix powdered milk with water until a paste forms. Apply the paste to skin to remove make up. Rinse thoroughly.

Crack Eliminator

Before you toss Grandma’s beloved china, enlist milk to the rescue! The protein in milk reacts with the mineral kaolin in china to close cracks. All you have to do is place china in a pan, cover it with milk, and bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer for up to an hour.

Silverware Polisher

For glistening silverware, take advantage of milk gone sour. Simply soak silverware in sour milk, cover it completely, and let it soak over night. The next day, wash the silverware as you normally would. If the milk isn’t sour already and you want to make your own, for every cup of milk, mix in one tablespoon of lemon juice and one tablespoon of vinegar and let it sit for five minutes before use.

Bug Bite Soother

Mix milk powder with enough water until it resembles a paste. Apply the paste to the area affected by the insect bite to relieve pain. The enzymes in the milk will neutralize the venom.

Facial Cleanser and Mask

Milk is a natural cleanser. It contains vitamin A, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamins B6 and B12. The alpha-hydroxy acids in milk exfoliate the skin, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and discoloration. Use a cotton ball to dab milk all across your face. Let it sit for a few minutes and then wash with water before moisturizing. For a mask, take 1/4 cup powdered milk and add enough water until it becomes a paste. Mix thoroughly and apply to the face. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before rinsing.

Ink Remover

To remove ink from clothing, take the affected garment and soak it in a milk bath overnight. The next day, wash the garment as usual. The stain should be gone. To boost the milk’s effectiveness, mix two parts milk with one part vinegar as the soaking solution.

Body Skin Moisturizer

The butterfat in milk moisturizes the skin. And because the pH of milk is close to the skin’s natural pH, the skin is more receptive to the moisturizing effects of the milk. Pour a few cups of fresh milk or 1/2 cup powdered milk into your bathtub, Cleopatra style.

Dry Hands Softener

To relieve dry and chafed hands, rinse them in milk a few times a day. Over the course of a week or two, your hands will begin to feel softer and less Winter rough.

Leather Cleaner

Dab worn or dirty leather with milk and buff until clean. The milk removes debris and leaves the leather shiny and looking brand new.

Corn on the Cob Flavor Booster

Boil corn with some milk in the water – about 1/2 cup – and the corn’s sweetness will heighten and its flavors will become more developed.

Shaving Cream Replacement

Run out of shaving cream? Nothing powdered milk and water can’t fix. Mix enough water with powdered sugar to produce a paste. Apply the paste to your face, underarms, and legs and shave. This simple concoction is smooth enough to resemble the real thing.

Poison Ivy Soother

To reduce the itch from an unintended stroll through a poison ivy bush, dab fresh milk or a powdered milk and water paste on the affected area. The milk will reduce the itchiness, redness, and irritation.

Sunburn Soother

Delicately pat sunburned skin with fresh milk. The milk cools the burn and the enzymes in the milk help to offset the pain.

Fertilizer

A tip from farmers and seasoned gardeners themselves – use milk as a fertilizer. Milk has been used as an organic fungicide and fertilizer without harming the plant.

Furniture Polisher

Sour milk makes for a great furniture polisher. Apply sour milk to furniture surfaces through a disposable spray bottle and wipe clean. You can also make your own sour milk, outlined above.

Milk Carton Bird Feeder

No, we didn’t forget about offering you a way to re-use the milk carton! Here is a tutorial on how to turn the carton into a bird feeder.

Images: Muffet, Striatic, Sshreeves, Jenny Downing, Gagstreet, Markusram, Robert Benner, The Living Room

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High-end dining just got a lot higher.

Just when you think going out to eat is losing its magic, these 10 oddly themed restaurants push the envelope and really get you your money’s worth. For some of them, food is secondary to the ambiance, or not even part of the picture. For others, the tastes of the menu items are piqued by the complementary atmosphere. Whatever you’re into – cats, ninjas, or handcuffs – a few of these restaurants are sure to make it to your bucket list.

Yellow Treehouse Café, New Zealand

The Yellow Treehouse offers a unique setting that channels the excitement of your tree-climbing days. Patrons of the restaurant dine in an illuminated pod-shaped structure perched 10-meters high in a Redwood tree. The pod can hold 30 guests at one time. As for the food, it stays grounded – all dishes are fresh, seasonal, and adapt to clients’ needs.

Cabbages & Condoms, Bangkok

As its namesake suggests, the food at Cabbages & Condoms is “guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.” The restaurant was created to support the Population and Community Development Association, an organization that provides sex/AIDS education and awareness. The garden restaurant is an introduction to Thai food – in only the safest way possible – and instead of mint favors on your way out, you’re given a box of condoms.

Calico Cat Café, Tokyo

Imagine going to a café that only serves cat food, but there’s a chance that it’s too crowded to get a seat. The Calico Cat Café in Tokyo is just that popular. The café caters to your love for coddling and feeding cats sans the commitment. Patrons are asked to sanitize their hands and remove their shoes upon entering and to abide by set rules: do not hold or stroke a cat if it resists you, do not wake a napping cat, do not hold cats with scarves around their necks (they are too young), and do not bring cat nip or cat food to the café. For $9 per adorable hour, the café is a bargain. Only, you’ll leave hungry.

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Maldives

The magical Ithaa Undersea Restaurant is the first of its kind in the world. The restaurant is located 5 meters (16 feet) under water off the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island and serves contemporary Asian-inspired European cuisine. The restaurant is encased in R-Cast acrylic and can host 14 people at one time, offering a 270° panoramic underwater view.

Unsicht-Bar, Cologne and Berlin

Heighten your other senses by taking away one very important one: sight. The Unsicht-Bar, with locations in Cologne and Berlin in Germany, uses the dark to strip patrons of their vision and take them on a culinary adventure that requires they focus more on taste, temperature, texture and smell. All light is forbidden, including that coming from watches and cellphones. The restaurant’s waiters are also either blind or visually impaired. The food, which is described enigmatically to leave an element of surprise, is served in a context-appropriate manner, avoiding a confusion of flavors or a potential mess. The flavors are simple, but profound in that they are enjoyed in an entirely new way – without visual prejudgment.

Ninja New York, New York City

Japanese cuisine just got more interesting. At Ninja New York, diners are wowed, and often at the edge of their seats, with ninjas jumping around, pop rocks on sushi rolls, smoke machine action, magicians, and an overall festive and upbeat atmosphere. The restaurant’s décor aspires to mimic a ninja village from the feudal days, providing patrons with a sense of what it was like back when.

Chill Out, Dubai

As if Dubai has not enough marvels as is, the city offers a unique way to, well, chill out. Chill Out is an architecturally fascinating refrigerator lounge with special lighting and design works that highlight the innovativeness of the frozen structures. Before entering the bar, Patrons are offered thermal clothing – parka, shoes, and gloves – and are then led to the Eskimo oasis. A complimentary mocktail or hot chocolate welcomes you.

Devil Island Prison Restaurant, China

This restaurant was initially conceptualized to scare people from a life of crime. Upon entering this restaurant, patrons are allocated a number, photographed, fingerprinted, and optionally handcuffed. The interior of the restaurant is designed after a prison, with sliding jail doors, metal floors, and rusty iron bars. Patrons dine in a prison cell and are served by waiters dressed in black-and-white striped inmate uniforms. Food includes fried, coffin-shaped bread.

Dinner In The Sky, Worldwide

Suspended 50-meters high by a crane, diners at Dinner in the Sky can host an event practically anywhere. The table is equipped with 22 seats, one chef, one waiter, and one entertainer. Dinner in the Sky operates in more than 15 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The event can be hosted for up to 8 hours, with the time fragmented – people can come and go at whatever interval of time. As for a bathroom break, have no fear, the crane will lower for relief without interrupting the experience for more than a few minutes.

Marton Theme Restaurant, Taiwan

Originally serving chocolate ice cream in toilet-shaped containers, Marton Theme Restaurant has certainly gained quite the fanfare over the years. There are now Marton restaurants across Taiwan and the company has recently changed the name of its restaurants to “Modern Toilet Restaurant,” all of which offer a full menu that can be enjoyed whilst sitting atop a toilet.

Images: Jeremiah Ro, Meredith P., Carsten Lorenzten, Karendotcom127, Wonder Bus Tours Dubai, Smart Travelers

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