Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

A food safety official in Guangzhou has proposed a novel idea of how to deal with milk contaminated with melamine.

Wang Fang, director of the Guangzhou food safety office says the tainted milk could be used to make bricks and cement.

He told an English-language newspaper that when the milk is burnt in a kiln, the residue could be used to make the building materials.

One wonders how he came up with that innovative solution, other than that it was cheaper to dispose of the milk in this way (700RMB per ton, $102.50) compared to hazardous waste (1,800RMB per ton).

And media reports so far say Guangzhou has 51 tons of tainted milk, but Wang believes there's probably much more than that.

Wang gets points for creativity, but does health-wise he know that the residue from melamine is OK as a material to make cement and bricks? Or is he looking for another way to line his pockets?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is a problem with developing countries. any new innovations are implimented without much diligent study and test. it is a good thought but needs scrutiny .