Wang Hao, Xiao Yi and Weng Jie, China
The Chinese trio Wang Hao, Xiao Yi and Weng Jie from Shanghai Nanyang Model High School were awarded the prize for a project which “displayed originality, ingenuity and tenacity in its use of low-cost, ecologically friendly technology to restore a polluted urban river channel,” according to the international nominating committee.
Their project consisted of the students damming small sections of the highly polluted Caoxi river channel and removing the contaminated mud which was exposed. Second, oxygen-starved stretches of the river were revitalised through the use of floating aerators. Third, bushes and other bank-side plants were carefully fertilised with organic waste, irrigated and used as biological barriers to block polluted runoff from the land. Finally, through a water quality monitoring program, illicit sewage discharges were discovered, exposed and eliminated.
The committee called the project a “tried-and-true method for river channel restoration which gives great hope for similar successes with other streams in the 19-million person Shanghai metropolitan area.”
