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December 27, 2010

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Rubbish issue no longer swept under the carpet

By Xu Wenwen | December 27, 2010, Monday | Print Edition

A city's rubbish, to some extent, is fragments of the city's life. In Hangzhou, those fragments carrying the city's stories are pieced together to restart a new "life."

From someone's kitchen, a piece of garbage is discarded into a specific dust bin. The next morning, it will be loaded onto a truck where it will be compressed, and later it will be burned or buried. If it is buried, the methane generated by the waste material will be used to yield electricity. Several years later, the piece of rubbish may even be part of a park, with a tree on the top of it.

By following such a recycling process, garbage may finally shed its "stinky" and "pollution" image, and Hangzhou is promoting this process to the whole city.

In March, the city launched a pilot project for recycling garbage, while supplementary policies, such as updating refuse chambers and transforming landfill sites, followed.

A cartoon with a catchy jingle plays frequently on Hangzhou's buses and local TV channels, advising citizens on how to sort garbage and demonstrating the municipal government's determination to succeed with the project.

Compared with 10 years ago, the city is now more ambitious and resolved to make an effort in recycling garbage.

In 2000, the city introduced its first trial of sorting rubbish for recycling, yet few citizens responded.

Despite placing recyclable and non-recyclable dust bins on streets and in neighborhoods, people discarded garbage with no attention to the sorting rules. But even if they did choose the right bin, the refuse would be mixed when placed on the garbage truck.

"No one kept it going, and no one was serious," says Hu Minxi, the director of the Environmental Hygiene Department of Xipailou Neighborhood. Ten years ago, the project of sorting garbage in the neighborhood was a failure. So when it reintroduced the project this year, residents showed doubt.

"On hearing the news, we thought it would be the same as 10 years ago, and many said 'it is impossible'," says He Meizhen, a 62-year-old Xipailou neighborhood resident.

New efforts

To erase doubts, for a whole month, the committee members went to every household to explain how to sort garbage and why; later, the committee distributed free specialized garbage bags and bins provided by the municipal government. Cleaners were also specially employed to supervise rubbish sorting at the refuse chamber.

Because the neighborhood committee was serious, people's attitudes soon changed, and they became serious about the issue too, according to Hu.

Today, garbage sorting in this neighborhood is 97 percent correct. "Even my three-year-old granddaughter knows food waste goes in the green dust bin while the rest goes in the orange one," says He.

Now, the neighborhood votes for a star of garbage sorting every month and quarter. In addition, some residents have composed songs to promote the understanding of sorting garbage.

This example by the Xipailou neighborhood epitomizes Hangzhou's efforts to promote a "low-carbon lifestyle," encouraging people to gradually change their old habits.

So far, 40 percent of neighborhoods in the city carry out strict sorting of garbage, and the number is expected to rise to 60 percent next year and 80 percent in 2012.

Apart from sorting garbage, the city's 69 refuse transfer stations will be updated to a "clean mode" by next year. Compactor trucks will replace traditional refuse chambers to avoid bad smells, noise and sewage by compacting garbage in trucks directly.

Traditionally, garbage is stored and compacted in refuse chambers, which can cause the spread of viruses and bad odors.

By last week, 20 refuse chambers had been updated.

Another huge leap in recycling is the project to transform Tianzi Mountain No.1 Landfill into a park, which started two years ago.

This October, two couples held their weddings on Tianzi Mountain. If it had happened two years ago, people would have thought they were crazy, but today it seems reasonable as the location is now an 80,000-square-meter eco-friendly park.

On the site there are more than 10,000 trees, pools and sculptures, while beneath the green surface is more than 9 million tons of rubbish generated by Hangzhou citizens between 1991 to 2007.

Landfill park

As there is 1.5 meters between the rubbish and the surface, bad smells have been blocked, while pipes in the garbage collect its methane to be used in creating electricity, which can meet the daily requirement of 8,000 households.

This March, the park opened to the public, and has become a fresh scenic spot as well as an example of low-carbon living.

As Tianzi Mountain is currently the only landfill site in the city and its first area has been filled, the second area, which can contain 20 million tons of waste, is now being used.

"It will be completely full in 20 years," says Zhang Shukong, vice director of the Hangzhou Supervision Center of Solid Waste Disposal. "Once the second section is full, Hangzhou will have no other large landfill site."

Hangzhou


 

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