Shanmei's urban area was very close to Pengcheng. If you took the Shenhai Expressway, it took just over two hours to drive from Pengcheng to Shanmei.
A coach came off the expressway at Pubian, then headed straight for Shanmei Avenue in the urban area, where the passengers checked into an ordinary business hotel.
There were twenty-three people in the group. Their leader was a middle-aged, scholarly-looking man dressed in a plain white shirt: Li Jiye, a deputy district chief from Pengcheng.
Among his companions were staff from Pengcheng's sanitation, environmental protection, and commerce departments, along with five experts in related fields.
After putting their luggage away, the group left the hotel and began exploring Shanmei on foot. They didn't stick to the main roads; they also inspected alleys, urban villages, and the outskirts where the city met the countryside.
The city wasn't as dirty and chaotic as they'd imagined. Although its infrastructure was generally outdated, garbage was cleared promptly.
Now and then, they saw automatic street sweepers and water-spraying trucks making rounds along the main roads.
Sanitation workers took care of the spots machinery couldn't reach, such as corners and narrow alleys.
There were plenty of trash bins, though none were sorted by type. Li Jiye was particularly impressed by the bins' anti-tipping design.
What puzzled the group even more was the number of rapid vacuum trucks they saw. Over the two days they spent inspecting the area, they came across them at work at least twenty times.
Xiao Dongming was an expert in the relevant field, currently working on molecular membrane technology. The rapid vacuum trucks did indeed use a fast processing system that could filter wastewater.
Curious, Li Jiye asked, "Professor Xiao, can water treated this way really reach drinking-water standards?"
"We don't know yet. At a glance, it looks quite clear, but we need to take samples and test it properly." Xiao Dongming didn't dare jump to conclusions.
When they tried to approach one of the trucks, however, the operator stopped them, saying that the process involved company secrets and wouldn't allow Li Jiye and the others to get any closer.
They visited the stretch of the Xinlou River that had previously been cleaned up. All the trash and debris in the river had been cleared away, and the wastewater that had once flooded the dirt road was gone.
The sludge in the riverbed had also been excavated by Blue Era.
As they followed the Xinlou River upstream, they came across quite a few livestock farms. The smell was unpleasant, but there was no sign of wastewater and manure being dumped everywhere.
Several farmers were surprised to see a group of strangers whose clothes were so clean and neat.
Li Jiye quickly smiled and said, "Your pigs look pretty good, sir."
A middle-aged man tending a fire tossed on another log and replied casually, "They're doing all right. We haven't been able to get any leftover food lately, so they have to eat feed, vegetable leaves, and sweet potatoes."
"How come I don't see any pig manure around your farm?" Li Jiye asked indirectly. He'd worked in the countryside before and knew that small farms like this usually had no concept of pollution control.
"It's in the underground tank out back. Someone comes to collect it every so often. They're here now."
Speak of the devil.
A rapid vacuum truck turned off the dirt road by the entrance to Shanzhi Institute and headed toward the farm. The name and logo of "Blue Era" were printed on its side.
Li Jiye recognized the name, but wasn't surprised to see it.
As the group watched, an operator opened the lid of a plastic tank buried underground. The lid resembled a manhole cover and had a padlock on it.
He inserted a suction hose into the tank and quickly pumped out the wastewater and pig manure. Meanwhile, a large quantity of filtered, purified water flowed out through the drainage outlet.
The small pond the farmer had dug soon began to fill. They didn't drink this recycled water, but it was very convenient for watering vegetables, washing out the pigpens, and other such tasks.
The middle-aged farmer handed the driver a card that looked like a bank card. "Old Wei, see how many points I've got?"
The driver inserted it into the computer in the truck and refreshed the data. "You've got 1,437 points. That's enough to redeem for organic fertilizer. You're still a long way off if you want to redeem them for liquefied gas."
"Thanks."
"No problem."
For every kilogram of dry matter compressed out of the wastewater tank, the farmer earned one point. Those points could be redeemed for goods from Hailu Gas or Hailu Organic Fertilizer.
This encouraged farmers to cooperate and motivated them to direct wastewater, pig manure, and the like into the storage tanks.
While the truck went to another farm, several experts crouched beside the pond. There was some silt in the water, but after it settled for a while, the surface gradually cleared.
Xiao Dongming scooped up a handful and smelled it. He couldn't detect any strong odor. Any smell that remained came from the farm itself, not from the water.
The others reached the same conclusion.
This approach to pollution control and water recycling astonished them. It not only eliminated the problem of farms discharging waste, but also reduced their water consumption.
Even with water lost to evaporation and seepage, it could still cut water use by at least half.
Although Pengcheng was a modern city, it also had outskirts where the city met the countryside, as well as livestock farms of every size.
Management was relatively strict, but pollution from some of the smaller farms remained a headache.
Introducing Shanmei's approach could be a good solution.
Li Jiye carried a notebook and pen, recording the parts he thought useful as he inspected the situation.
That afternoon, the group headed straight for Guizhuling Industrial Park. After they identified themselves, the plant manager, Huang Guotong, came out to greet them in person.
Meanwhile, the rapid vacuum truck staff who had been working over the past two days had reported something to the Security Department: a group of people had been observing their trucks.
Combined with Huang Guotong's report just now, the Security Department quickly figured out what was going on. They surmised that the visitors were an official inspection group from Pengcheng.
Lin Baijie instructed Huang Guotong to treat the visitors well, then reported the matter to Huang Xiuyuan.
Huang Xiuyuan simply told Lin Baijie to play it by ear and not be overly enthusiastic, so they could keep the initiative.
After all, there was a difference between offering something to someone unprompted and having them come to you. Anything too easily obtained could seem cheap.
When Li Jiye and his group toured Guizhuling Industrial Park and entered the second- and third-phase factory buildings, they were deeply shaken.
The five experts, especially Xiao Dongming, had complicated feelings. They were thrilled, but also felt the sting of being overtaken by the next generation.
Borrowing the factory's basic laboratory, they ran a rough test on the treated water and discovered that it was already purified water.
It was actually quite simple to test whether water was purified. Even without a transmission electron microscope or similar equipment, they could use basic methods.
One method was to pass an electric current through it: purified water was a poor conductor of electricity.
The other method was supercooling. Still purified water wouldn't freeze even below zero degrees Celsius. This was known as supercooled water. Since purified water lacked nucleation sites—impurities—it wouldn't freeze below zero while undisturbed.
Using these two methods, Xiao Dongming and the others were able to confirm that the water was indeed purified.
But Li Jiye saw something else.
What he saw was the rapid production of gas, purified water, organic fertilizer, and the thorough recovery of pollutants.
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