CRI听力:Garbage Classification

Household garbage disposal has long been a headache for many big cities with growing urbanization. Landfill, burning and bio-degeneration, nearly all the methods require one precondition-garbage classification. What is efficient garbage classification and what are the respective responsibilities of the government and citizens? Let's follow our reporter Li Dong to take a closer look.

According to latest statistics, the daily household garbage capacity in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai has reached about 18 thousand, 17 thousand and 20 thousand respectively and the garbage never stops.

Compared to landfill and bio-degeneration, burning seems to be an efficient disposal method. But after years of study and practice, both the government and grassroots level experts believe, garbage classification is the vital precondition of all garbage disposal methods.

Local governments realized the problem. Take Beijing for example, last year Beijing Municipal Government promoted garbage classification in 600 communities. The project achieved limited progress. As this garbage collector says:

"In the past, all the garbage was mixed together and people throw it wherever they want to. Now there are some minor changes. Each family in this community are given two garbage cans, one for kitchen garbage one for the rest. Now, only about 30 percent people voluntarily pack garbage according to the two categories."

In his tricycle, the garbage in different categories is still put together, but he says, they are required do a basic separation before transported to the next place.

After in-depth research plus an personal tour to Japan's garbage disposal system, Huang Xiaoshan, a grassroots garbage disposal campaigner believes an important step is missing in the whole classification process.

"We should add a classification platform between household garbage dispoal and garbage transportation. Because once they are mixed and transported to the next phase, it's impossible to separate them."

Huang Xiaoshan has proposed his "Green House" project to the Beijing Municipal Government and he says he has got some positive feedback. Huang Xiaoshan emphasizes the key of his project is to separate wet garbage from dry.

"Kitchen garbage has a lot of water. About 5 thousand to 6 thousand tons in Beijing's daily household garbage is just water. Dehydrated garbage may save one third of the transportation fee. After this basic step, classifying the rest of the dry garbage should be easier."

His opinion is echoed by Wang Weiping, an engineer of garbage disposal and advisor for the Beijing Municipal Government. His suggestion goes further than just garbage classification.

"We did a survey, 60 out of 300 tons of vegetables transported into the city are just mud and unedible parts. We have to transport them out of the city after cleaning. Why can't we clean the vegetables before we move the edible part into the city? It saves a lot of energy and transportation fees."

Wang Weiping adds, there is another method we can take to increase the efficiency of garbage use.

"In north Europe, Japan and central Europe, community dwellers put what they don't need in certain place, like toys and necessities. Volunteers collect and clean them, and distribute them to people who need them. This greatly boosts the recycling of waste and reduces garbage."

This year, the Beijing Municipal Government will expand its garbage classification work to 1200 communities in downtown and another 1200 in rural areas. There will be a reward and punishment method for their performance. Also Shanghai and Guangzhou recently announced their own re-adjusted household garbage classification plan.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.