Chinese have been starting to enjoy their nation’s beautiful green beaches yet again, with 2013 proving a bumper year for the pollution nourished algal blooms which have plagued Chinese coasts of late.
The algae’s incredible bloom, said to cover nearly 30,000 square kilometres and not seen to such an extent since the distant past of 2008, is believed to be the result of the profusion of nutrients available thanks to the vast quantities of industrial effluent and sewage China helpfully pumps into its rivers and seas.
Although the algae itself is regarded as harmless to human life (the effect a bloom has on marine life is another matter however) and were it not raised in pristine Chinese waters might actually be considered edible, fears about toxic concentrations of gases emitted from its decomposition have the authorities scrambling to remove it lest it poison someone or do the other thing China has had so much experience with lately.
They report 20,000 tonnes of the stuff has already been removed, although what measures, if any, they intend to take to stem the flow of pollutants into the sea are not clear.
Fortunately local beach-goers remain unfazed, although between this and the summer smog it is hard to imagine their tourism industry faces much of a future:
I WAS going to the beach today…
Eww the chinese. Always waddling in their own filth. I bet after they shovel that s♥♥t on the truck they take it back to their homes, cook it with some of their exploding soy-sauce recipes, and serve it inside a tin-can to their families!
Toxins and all! DELICIOUS!
just leave it to china to f♥♥k up the environment even more, oh i really wish they were extinct
lets have an algae fight!!
Someone’s trash, someone else’s treeasure.