The world’s most famous tire (轮胎) graveyard (坟地) of 42 million tires in the sands of Kuwait is finally being cleaned up and recycled. This news in itself would be a major relief to locals who have to suffer from the clouds of black smoke arising during fires. But the government isn’t stopping there. They are aiming to create a green city of 25,000 homes in line with a post-oil Persian Gulf, with a focus on sustainability and tourism.

The first step is to clear the ground. The Salmiya area, nicknamed “Rubber (橡胶) Mountain”, is formed from hundreds of small mountains of spent tires — a reaction from the one million cars which were added to Kuwait’s roads over the decade.

EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company has opened a recycling plant for the tires, where they’ve been collected, sorted, cut up, and pressed into other materials like rubbery coloured flooring tiles (铺地砖). The plant opened in January of 2021, and can recycle up to 3 million tires a year. The recycled material is then exported out to nearby gulf neighbours and Asia. In the place of the tires will be South Saad Al-Abdullah City, a green city characterizing a new era in the Middle-Eastern country.

Spent tires are a major environmental problem worldwide due to the room they take up and the chemicals they can release.

“We have moved from a difficult stage that was characterized by great environmental risk,” says Oil Minister Mohammed al-Fares. “Today the area is becoming clean and all tires are being removed to begin the launch of the project of Saad Al-Abdullah city.”

Expected to cost €3.3 billion and require 30 years to complete, the city hopes to feature green technology, probably like the kind one can see in other cities on the Persian Gulf, both existing and not. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a zero-emissions, car-less future city that’s centered around access to big data rather than water or crops.

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China’s economic planning agency Thursday announced a rise in minimum rice purchase prices this year to encourage farmers to grow more grain.

A statement on the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) website said the government would continue the policy of minimum purchase prices in major rice-growing regions in 2011. The rises in the minimum rice purchase price had been approved by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, said the statement.

The purchase prices for japonica rice will rise 21.9 percent to 128 yuan (19.4 U.S. dollars) per 50 kilograms, while prices for early and middle-late rice will increase 9.7 percent and 10.3 percent to 102 yuan and 107 yuan per 50 kg respectively.

Rice and wheat are two major grain crops in China.

The State Council pledged Wednesday to step up efforts to boost grain production as drought continues to wreak havoc in north China’s wheat growing regions.

China’s main wheat-growing regions, including Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Jiangsu provinces, have been plagued by drought since October last year.

Drought has affected about 7.73 million hectares, or 42.4 percent, of the total winter wheat crop area in the country’s eight key producing provinces, the Ministry of Agriculture said Wednesday.

China’s grain output rose 2.9 percent last year to 546.41 million tons, marking the seventh consecutive year of growth.