Abstract | While the subject of environmental pollution and waste management in
Chinese cities has become the focus of recent scholarly studies in the fields of urban
planning and environmental science, it remains a new and unexplored topic in the
history of China. This study takes Shanghai as a case study to examine the history of
municipal waste management in modern China. It specifically focuses on the time
period between 1866 and 1949. Waste management involved the processes of
collection and disposal of three main types of waste, namely sewage, night soil and
garbage. With the publication of the first municipal report of the International
Settlement in 1866, waste management had been playing an increasingly significant
role in transforming Shanghai into a modern and hygienic city. This thesis takes a
revisionist approach to argue that the foreign municipalities acted as a facilitator for
the development of modern waste management rather than as an imperialist
legitimising its colonial rule through sanitary policies.
The foreign municipal governments - mainly the British led Shanghai
Municipal Council, helped found a basis for a modern sanitary system in the foreign
settlements, which the Chinese municipality subsequently adopted. Because of the
exposure of Shanghai to global technological inventions and advancement, this
thesis suggests that municipal waste management reached its zenith in the
Republican era. The Japanese occupation from 1937 to 1945 created enormous
disruption to the extant removal system. In addition to this, the demographic and
economic pressures exacerbated the problem of excessive waste accumulation. The
inflation rate continued to rise in post-1945, and strikes and corruption associated
with garbage and night soil coolies became acute. The Guomindang’s government
proved impotent as it was unable to control inflation or curb corruption. This thesis
further argues that Shanghai’s municipal waste management, founded during the late
Qing and reached its zenith in the Republican era, was in decline in 1949. Finally, it
seeks to provide some insights into waste and its management, which was not a
detached social element, but a determining factor of the changing social, economic
and political conditions under three very different regimes.
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