Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    STUDENTS and their parents of some schools and kindergartens equipped with synthetic running tracks and sports fields across the country have been gripped by fear since last year as more and more such facilities have been found highly toxic.

    According to media reports, shortly after the start of the fall semester of 2015, numerous pupils from dozens of schools in Beijing, Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, Nanjing and Suzhou of Jiangsu Province, and Shenzhen, were found unwell with symptoms of nosebleeds, dizziness, skin allergies and rashes.

    Dozens of pupils from a school in Suzhou fell ill at the same time only two or three days after they returned to school after the summer break. At the same time, three primary schools in Nanshan and Futian districts in Shenzhen saw a large number of pupils suffer from nosebleeds, stomach pain, vomiting and coughing. Over half of the children in a first-grade class had nosebleeds.

    Panic-stricken parents immediately thought of a suspicious culprit: the schools’ plastic running tracks, as almost every child had complained about the tracks’ pungent smell. They demanded that immediate probes be made to detect possible toxic substances in the track materials.

    Tests on the track materials at two schools in Shenzhen showed that the samples contained toluene and xylene with concentration five to 20 times the national standard. Experts point out that both chemicals are highly carcinogenic.

    As early as 13 years ago, a teacher at Beijing Education Science Institute called for the disuse of the synthetic running tracks because of its carcinogenic content toluene diisocynate (TDI).

    Unfortunately, the warning was not taken up by authorities. To embrace the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the education authorities of Beijing decided to replace schools’ gravel tracks and natural football pitch lawns with synthetic ones. They called it a “new image” of the city.

    The then deputy mayor of Beijing instructed professional evaluations be made before the adoption of the new facilities. As expected, the professional conclusion reported that the synthetic running track was basically harmless. Then came a nationwide rush to adopt plastic tracks.

    Since the synthetic running track and football pitch lawns have been in use globally for quite a long time, it’s justifiably argued that products up to national or international standards are safe. The question, however, is what safeguards are in place to guarantee the safety of children and other users.

    The sad truth is that nobody at all is supervising the production and sale of the life-critical products, without even pro forma regulation. According to TV reports, dozens of factories in Baoding and Cangzhou in Hebei Province are churning out large quantities of raw material for synthetic running tracks.

    Insiders revealed that these outrageously corner-cutting factories make their “products” out of waste materials, often highly toxic, such as used tires, cables and other plastic rubbish.

    To grab a share of the huge pie of the synthetic running track market, boosted by nationwide zeal to jump on the bandwagon of plastic running tracks, new manufacturers are scrambling to join the already overcrowded market. Last year alone, nearly 3,000 new factories joined in throughout the country, most of which are unqualified and ill-managed, without the necessary technical know-how.

    These poisonous products have found their way unimpeded into school campuses in at least 15 cities in six provinces.

    As in the cases of corruption in other areas, behind the chaos lies monkey business. Greedy officials and manufacturers never care about the consequences of their evil acts, not even human lives.

    One of the primary reasons why the rampancy of life-threatening counterfeit products remains unchecked is overall leniency toward offenders. Hardly anyone who was caught producing fake goods has been sentenced.

    Anyone who is found guilty of violating citizens’ rights to life and health must be put behind bars. Only harsh punishments can teach people to learn how to take up the moral responsibility of revering life.

    (The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer.)