New Shanghai bridge collapses, revealing its components to be mostly rubbish & not concrete!

that's nasty looking. ewwww:puke:

Shanghai Wonder: Bridge Made of Trash Collapses

In an absurd twist of fate and a rather distinct
and unusual statement on the need to recycle, residents of Shanghai got the surprise of their life when earlier this month a major new bridge collapsed, revealing its components to be mostly rubbish and not concrete!

Completed in 2009, the bridge replaced a much older one with a more modern design. It began to collapse after being in operation only a short period; just after Christmas, when cracks appeared in the structure. Some thought the ground might have become unstable or that it might have been the result of the inefficiency of the original construction company.



Subsequent inquiry revealed the latter to be the case. Styrofoam, bags of garbage, scrap wood and plastic waste were used as construction materials in the structure.




More pics here:http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/02/05/shanghai-wonderbridge-trash-collapses/

Those fools are crazy to be messing with the chinese government.

And their family will get billed for the bullet afterward.

methods that are used to get them to confess.

VERY, VERY stupid to do something like this in China. China is near the top of my list of places to play it completely straight and narrow. Tops is Singapore.

What kind of civil engineering is that????

Happens here too- some contractor here in NorCal is in some deep shit for using less-than-spec concrete on the new span of the Bay Bridge.

THAT's what kind of "engineering" it is.

They have been known to execute people for things like that. Not always, but sometimes.

like, i.e. stealing/misusing gov't funds that should have paid for better construction materials, you will find that attempting to split hairs over whether regulations cover what you did will not get you far.

It wont even mean the difference between whether you get to wear a blindfold to your firing squad.

The businessman's dream government.

:sarcasm:

Is pushing are running with polymers, connectors, electronics etc made in China.

But this just blows them away.
Come on Japan you're not gonna let China beat you are ya???

Cardboard, newspapers, scrap metals, plastic. It makes up the major export volume at our ports.

to be recycled have been ending up back there..unless they are just tossed into landfill.
We have been using canvas bags in our house (even to a few arguments about bringing things home in them) for about 5 yrs now.
I try to buy least packaged and local products as far as I can afford it and as far as I can find local stuff to buy when I need to buy. I don't buy the latest gizmo either..its not in our ever shrinking(shrieking) budget.

We are also doin our best to curtail power use, as an old appliance dies we try to find the replacement with least service calls/longest life/best efficiency.

Uh, no!

Contrary to popular belief.

on kind of thing...

In China the builders will be shot.
here a small fine...
remember that.

Kenner levee compromised by debris, officials say
<snip>
So much construction debris has been found buried in the hurricane protection levee in front of Kenner's Pontchartrain Center that the top 2 to 2-1/2 feet of the earthen barrier must be removed and replaced before several million dollars worth of pending levee improvements can begin.

The debris includes pieces of concrete, brick, metal, wood and other waste that presumably were mixed with the clay used to raise the levee between the Duncan Canal drainage pumping station and Williams Boulevard in 2000 and 2001, Army Corps of Engineers officials have confirmed.

Although corps guidelines permit a small amount of silt, sand, debris and other "unsuitable material" to be blended into levee-building clay, the debris field recently found in this 2,000-foot stretch of levee west of Williams exceeds the 1 percent allowed.<snip>
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/post_65.html

Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Army Corps of Engineers Building Levees Out of Newspaper

Our latest scandal is unfolding daily. Intrepid television reporter Lee Zurik did a piece on newspaper in levees Floodwalls stuffed with newspaper?

It�s like putting a Band-Aid on the hole of a gas tank of an airplane,” the resident said.

Instead of an airplane, it�s a floodwall, and instead of a Band-Aid, the witness says two years ago, he saw the contractor filling the expansion joint or opening between the floodwalls with newspaper.

�The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.�

And when he confronted the contractor, the contractor blamed Washington for the substandard work.

�He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way.�

The contractor is Ercon Corporation who�s website home page immediately raises the question who are these goobers? Their website seems to reflect their commitment to getting the job done.

<snip>
Least of all the assurance that newspaper stuffed levees are an accepted yet �expedient� construction method as offered in Corps explains newspaper�s use in floodwall. To quote New Orleans blogger Celcus in his post Yesterday�s Papers.

� cramming newspapers into a gap is considered a �method� as in �method of construction� consistent with standard practice. So that when they say such-and-such has been built to �industry standards� or the like, that can include newspapers stuffed into joints. Perhaps whatever the Corp does automatically becomes the standard, in some sort of transubstantiation.

The contractor was not at fault, since the newspaper stuffing was done by the capable hands of the Army Corps itself. Is that supposed to make us feel safer, or does it simply make it harder for anyone to take action?

Jeffery of the yellow blog writes in It�s Not the Preferred Technique.

So in December 2005, Donald Powell commits to building the �best levee system known in the world� and by May 2006, that�s already devolved into �expedient method to do minor repairs� by something other than the �preferred technique�.

Finally, who here can rest assured that �those three gaps were the only ones where such a method was used?� This is about as laughable as scandal as you could imagine and it�s especially funny that the response is �It�s all good.�
http://thinknola.com/post/newspaper-levees/

Well, at least you can read about Katrina when the levees break again and the old newspaper floats by.