In China, where a comprehensive system was developed for waste salvage even in the ancient times, fertilization with faeces was an important element of the agriculture even many thousand years ago. Productivity of the alluvial plain in the eastern part of the country has been maintained in this way for over 4,000 years. In several regions of China this tradition has been followed even recently. Han Suyin took the following note: „In Chengtu (capital of Sechuan Province) those families, who owned the city channel and, in this way, could send the accumulated faeces in countryside, have belonged to the richest ones even in the 20th century (till 1949)” (Markham, 1994). Fertilization of rice-paddies with faeces contributed largely to pollution of ground water which, in this way, is unfit for drinking in the whole tropic Asia. If, on the other hand, water is boiled, then salts are deposited and, in this way, it loses its taste. Flavouring boiled water with tee leaf comes from China and it started to spread in the empire about 2,000 B.C. and then all over Asia (Makra, 2000).
(“ANTHROPOGENIC AIR POLLUTION IN THE ANCIENT TIMES”, E. BORSOS, L. MAKRA, R. BÉCZI, B. VITÁNYI, M. SZENTPÉTERI, ACTA CLIMATOLOGICA ET CHOROLOGICA, Universitatis Szegediensis, Tom. 36-37, 2003, 5-15)