1. Disputes
Recently, an interview information on the Internet sparked heated discussions, and the Department of Ecology and Environment of a province in the central part of the mainland conducted a public interview with the responsible comrades of the people's governments of Wuh City, Hef City and other cities and counties with a large number of straw burning fire points in 2023.
The message area is very lively, and the focus of the debate is whether to ban straw burning?
Some people say that China's straw has been burned for thousands of years, killing pests and obtaining plant ash fertilizer.
Some people also quote the ecological environment department as saying that there are four major crimes against burning straw and should be banned!
1. Start a fire. Burning straw can easily cause fires and threaten the safety of people's lives and property.
2. Polluting the environment. If it is not fully combusted, it will produce a large amount of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons and soot, which will affect physical and mental health.
3. Destruction of fields. Straw burning also causes soil compaction and does not fertilize the field. Microorganisms on the surface of the ground are burned to death, changing the physical properties of the soil, aggravating soil compaction, destroying soil fertility, exacerbating drought, and thus affecting the growth of crops.
4. Affect traffic. Open burning of straw produces billowing smoke, which directly affects the line of sight and causes traffic accidents.
Second, the origin of the policy of banning straw burning
Xiaobian found a development process on the Internet of an ecological environment bureau about the control policy of straw burning ban. In 1999, the ban on straw burning was initiated by six departments, including environmental protection, agriculture, railways, transportation, civil aviation, and finance. Of course, the financial department is the guarantee of funds, and the other five departments are the real initiators, until 2015, and it has been continuously improved and formed, after a long process.
3. Analysis and suggestions on the reasons for the ban on straw burning
I remember that when I was a child, there were very few people who burned straw, so why did I ban straw burning almost overnight?
This brings us to the collision between agricultural civilization and industrial civilization!
1. The use of straw has changed. In the past, it was used for cooking and cattle feed, and large-scale open burning rarely occurred. Now, due to the spread of coal and liquefied gas, there is a large amount of surplus straw in the countryside. In addition, young people go to the city to work, and it is difficult for the elderly and children to carry straw, so the problem of straw burning has begun to spread since the eighties and nineties of the last century.
2. There has been a massive increase in modern means of transport. In the past, there were few cars, high-speed trains, and airplanes, and even if straw was burned, the impact on road traffic was small. Nowadays, there are many reports of vehicles and indiscriminate burning of straw that does cause traffic accidents.
3. As for the problems of causing fires, destroying fields, and polluting the environment, Xiaobian thinks that it cannot all be attributed to straw burning, even in the areas where straw is burned.
Therefore, for the majority of rural areas, the harm of straw burning is relatively more beneficial than disadvantageous, and this part of the control should also be relaxed.
For key control areas, the government should help farmers to dispose of straw and reduce the burden on farmers as much as possible, rather than simply issuing a document to ban it, or there are sustainable economic measures to help farmers digest the rich straw, which is a long-term solution.