With the rapid growth of its economy and its enormous population, The People’s Republic of China is facing the problem of meeting the needs of its people and maintaining its environment.

Professor Ya Hui Zhuang, former director of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, spoke Wednesday at Iowa State about methods the country should use to sustain its environment.

Zhuang currently is a visiting scholar at the U.S. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California and at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. He received his doctorate degree from Moscow State University in Russia and is a distinguished research fellow.

Zhuang said China should emulate a natural ecosystem in which there is no waste because everything is returned to the environment.

In order to approach this ideal situation, Zhuang said producers and consumers should look toward what he calls “downstream byproducts.”

When a tree is processed, for example, bio-pesticides, citric acid and fiber board can be made from the waste, and they are more valuable than the waste, Zhuang said.

He stressed the benefits of “value addition,” where value is added to a system by turning its waste into a valuable resource.

Zhuang also noted that in 17th-century China, the rice production per hectare equaled and sometimes exceeded that of California today. He said China’s only resources were solar and human power, and only a few fossil fuels and biomass existed.

However, Zhuang said it would be difficult for this type of situation to function today.

“It’s too labor-intensive, and it brings little revenue,” he said, adding that people today are not willing to revert to such a system.

“They prefer a higher life quality,” Zhuang said.

However, Zhuang said today’s system could be made more sustainable.

“We can improve the system with additional value,” he said.

One method of improving the system is by using cycling materialism, Zhuang said.

The waste byproducts of energy production, fertilizers and pesticides need to be used to their full potential. China needs to change the “cycling pathways” of these materials to achieve sustainability, he said.

Bing-Lin Young, professor of physics and astronomy at ISU, said China should work to solve its dilemmas.

“What they do to foster growth, meet their energy needs and curb the pollution will be a blueprint for how other developing nations tackle these important issues,” he said.