I was born in Guangzhou, one of the major cities of China. When I was a little kid, my parents were so busy with their work that oftentimes they dropped me off at my grandparents’ village in Guangxi, a beautiful hilly province in the south. There, I made a lot of friends; together we climbed up trees to pick longans, collected river snails in muddy ponds and caught fireflies in the dark. As a city child, I was the most timid as the other children were brave enough to catch frogs and snakes and sell them, whereas I would run away as fast as I could whenever I saw those animals.
While we were exploring every corner of the village, my great-grandma was concerned about our safety and repeatedly scared us with past incidents that happened in the town. “Don’t go to the hills” was one she said. The town used to be a site of manganese ore mining. After extraction, some deep mining holes were left on the hills unfilled. People had fallen into the mining holes by accident. My great-grandma’s words very effectively stopped me from exploring the hills.
Later as I grew older, I had to say goodbye to my hang-around group and went back to school in my city. Some of my friends in the village dropped out of middle school and joined the textile factories workforce in a nearby town. The area was congested with workshops, and the narrow pathway in between was jammed with trucks of various sizes. People had to work under the gloomy light and be immersed in air filled with textile chemicals. Despite long working hours and long-term exposure to contaminated environments, this is a popular option for many people living in nearby villages to earn money and support their families.
At the age of 15, with great curiosity about what studying in another country is like, I started my journey as an international student in Canada. For the first three years, I studied at a high school in Vancouver and stayed with a very kind and caring homestay family. As I was about to choose my major for university application, the memories of my childhood, the open mining holes incident, and the polluted textile factory environment came back to my mind. Believing that environmental remediation technologies will largely improve the health and living conditions of people thereby driving a sustainable future society, I applied for the environmental engineering program at the University of Alberta.
My passion and devotion to working in this field after graduation continue to grow as I learn and research more about the subject. I believe that through the collective effort of environmental workers, eventually, industrial pollution such as mining tailings and contaminated working environments in factories will be adequately mitigated, and the health, safety, and living conditions of many people will also be improved.
Written by: Fei Cheng
Fei completed her MSc and BSc degrees both in environmental engineering at the University of Alberta. Her research analyzed the reuse potential of an industrial waste named bauxite residue, produced from alumina extraction, in wastewater treatment applications. Fei is a communications director of IWA YWP Canada, managing the publication of monthly newsletters. Together with her team, they gather and deliver information about the latest events and opportunities in the water sector to help young water professionals across Canada.
IWA YWP Canada 