Two girls sort their trash in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province on June 28, 2012 for demonstration during a launching ceremony of the garbage classification system in the city. Photo: CFP
Besieged by piles of garbage, big cities in China are trying to sort out the long-running saga of waste sorting.
The southern city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province plans to calculate garbage disposal fees differently next year, and started a trial in six residential communities on December 1.
Waste disposal fees will be worked out on the basis of four kinds of trash: "Kitchen waste" and "other waste" must be paid for but; "recyclable waste" and "hazardous waste" will be picked up for free.
The dump-less-pay-less system is intended to motivate householders to sort their trash and help deal with the increasing amount of garbage city residents are throwing away.
Savings or imposition?
Residents will no longer pay a dumping fee to the government, but will buy refuse sacks priced from 0.1 to 0.5 yuan ($ 0.08), depending on the size of the bag.
Guangzhou has been charging every family 15 yuan per month for garbage collection for over 20 years, no matter how much rubbish they produced.
"I've done some calculating and I think I'll spend less than 8 yuan every month in the future," a resident told Xinhua News Agency, happy with the savings.
Some locals doubt the feasibility of the policy, saying they find it hard to get used to separating their trash in so short a time.
"It's impossible to supervise the whole process and to punish those who break the rules," said another local, Gu Suicheng.
A survey by Eco Canton, a local non-government organization, showed 45.4 percent of 1,000 respondents in 60 communities support the new rule. Almost a quarter, 24.3 percent, of the respondents objected and others have reservations.
The new policy may face even more obstacles in low income communities of largely migrant workers who change address frequently.
"We need extra hands, funds and equipment to carry out the new policy," a community worker in the downtown district of Haizhu said.
Some are afraid that it is another excuse for the government to impose unnecessary fees.
"We are not trying to charge more fees," said Wei Weihan, chairman of Guangzhou city management committee. "Our aim is to use price leverage to encourage [garbage] sorting."
The fees will go through a public hearing and be approved by the local price bureau ahead of imposition.
Beijing is also working on a similar scheme, but is only targeting companies and institutions.
NIMBY protests
The pressing garbage issue is strangling even the most dynamic Chinese cities, where garbage already overflows treatment capacity. Nearly 10,000 tons of waste are produced each day in Guangzhou, which has a population of more than 10 million. Of that, about 7,000 tons is buried in four landfills and the rest burned in two incinerators. The landfills will be full by the end of 2015, leaving nowhere to go for the bulk of the waste.
Because of "not-in-my-back-yard" objections, a planned garbage incinerator in Guangzhou has been suspended for three years.
On Tuesday, some 70 residents in Foshan, bordering Guangzhou, gathered outside a local government building, protesting against construction of a waste transfer station near their community.
"Nobody wants the garbage disposal facilities in his neighborhood, but at the same time, few people are willing to sort their waste," Zhou Yongzhang, a member of the Chinese Society for Sustainable Development, pointed out.
Slow progress
The waste-sorting campaign has been running for 13 years in eight pilot cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but progress is still far from earth-shattering.
Guangzhou introduced garbage sorting on April 1, 2011, and now imposes a fine of at least 50 yuan on violators with the intent that at least 50 percent of trash should be sorted before being dumped. The standard was to be met by 80 percent of its 1,400 communities by the end of 2013. So far only 30 percent of them have met the requirement.
In many communities, the additional receptacles for recyclables are seen by most people as nothing more than an extra bin, local officials said.
"You can't expect people to change their lifestyle over night," Liu Xiaolong, a local waste sorting official said, adding that even if some households have sorted their waste properly, the bags might get mixed up again in transit.
Zhou said that both citizens and governments lacked motivation.
"If people pay the same fees regardless of their performance, they simply cannot feel the pressure and costs of refuse disposal," said Zhou.
"Current government evaluation systems put little emphasis on the environment," he added.
Zhou hopes reform of officials' assessment will change the situation.
Observers also urge government to stimulate the market in recycling.
"Governments and private sectors in developed countries have joined their efforts in waste disposal and ecological restoration. They've built up a whole industrial chain," said Bai Wen, general manager of Guangzhou Environment Protection Investment Group. "That's what we need in China."
Bai pointed out that most recycling companies in China are small. "They need more preferential policies to survive and then to contribute to sustainable development."
Xinhua - Global Times