Over the past month, perhaps the most common question among Shanghai residents has been: "Which is the right bin for my rubbish?"

Slogans, posters and tips about the city's new garbage sorting rules are everywhere, from office buildings, schools and kindergartens to residential communities, parks and shopping malls. The campaign's messages have circulated widely on social media to make people aware that putting waste in the wrong bin would have consequences after the gradual introduction of the rules from May onwards.But many Shanghainese are struggling to throw the right things in the right places as they are forced to abandon old habits and embrace new ones - which some feel is complicated or involves needless effort.

The city announced its household waste management rules at the beginning of this year, saying it would introduce compulsory garbage sorting, with fines for those who failed to comply.Companies and organisations flouting the new rules stood to be fined 50,000-500,000 yuan (US$7,000-70,000), while individual offenders risked a fine of 50-200 yuan (US$7-29).

Dong Mingying, a 61-year-old woman living in Baoshan district, said she supported the government's initiative but was unsure how to classify some waste.

"For example, I need to dump this old table lamp and I don't know which bin I should put it in," she said. "I also cannot figure out which bin is right for my plastic bags."

In Shanghai, household waste is now required to be sorted into four categories: household food or kitchen waste, hazardous waste, recyclable waste and residual waste.

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Shanghai is not the first city in China to introduce waste sorting, but it is the country's most serious in its implementation.

"The central government chose Shanghai as an example of how to do waste sorting, and is calling on other cities to learn from it," said an official from the Shanghai Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau - the government department spearheading the initiative.

"The Central Propaganda Department (of the Communist Party) required state media to focus on Shanghai's waste sorting," said the official, who requested to remain anonymous since she is not authorised to speak to media.

A couple of weeks ago, the measures were brought in for 13,000 residential blocks in the city. General rubbish bins that had previously taken all types of household waste were removed from buildings. Instead, residents were told to visit designated trash collection stations to dispose of different types of waste.

Many communities have organised volunteers, mostly pensioners, to stand by the stations giving instructions on what to do.

One of the difficulties has been making people open plastic bags containing kitchen waste to pour the contents into kitchen waste bins before placing the bags into residual waste. People have been reluctant because it means getting their hands dirty, a 71-year-old volunteer surnamed Tang said.

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"Many have said they were on their way to take children to school or go to work, and didn't want to deal with these dirty stuff," she said. "After all, we can't force them to do this."

Tang said a young woman once cursed her after Tang told her to sort out her rubbish. The woman was going to throw out three plastic bags containing various types of rubbish mixed together.

"She said she didn't know anything about rubbish classification and wouldn't listen to us," Tang said.

The property management company had applied to the government to install taps at rubbish stations so that people could wash their hands, Tang said. "But it will take months for the authority to approve and install it, I was told," Tang said.

The government's rubbish trucks will not collect residential waste that has not been separated, so cleaners are told to check and, if necessary, re-sort what residents have left.

"That has increased my workload," a cleaner in a community in Baoshan district said. "Still some people don't classify it correctly."

Liu Xianglong, a 36-year-old white collar worker living in Pudong district, said he became aware of the waste sorting only two weeks ago when he found that the bins near his house had disappeared. His daughter also told him that her kindergarten teacher had taught pupils about waste sorting.

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"Then I realised that the government is rolling out this programme seriously," Liu said.

"It's environmental and it's a good thing. But not classifying rubbish was convenient, and we young people are so busy with work and don't have a strong motivation to do it, unless the punishment will really be enforced."

The Shanghai authorities have not yet released details about how they intend to identify those who breach the new rules.

Liu said his mother, a retiree from Hunan province, did not understand the significance of rubbish sorting.

"She thought the authorities were making a fuss, and complained that it would be better for them to catch corrupt officials," Liu said.

Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.


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