Supermarket shopping with trash
Print Edition
At 5am, Yao Dongmei, an 83-year-old woman living in Qiankou Village in eastern China鈥檚 Anhui Province, left home with bags of garbage to join a line in front of a shop.
She greeted and chatted with her fellow villagers while waiting. Moments later, they left with daily necessities. 鈥淓xchanging garbage for daily goods鈥 is what Yao and her fellow villagers line up for each week.
China pledged to realize a utilization rate of 35 percent in household garbage recycling by 2020 and 46 Chinese cities piloted the mandatory classification of residential waste.
Metropolises are in the forefront of the campaign. Shanghai implemented a regulation on mandatory waste management on July 1, while Beijing announced it would follow suit.
Meanwhile, townships and villages are also exploring ways to achieve these goals.
Qiankou, Yao鈥檚 hometown, began piloting a garbage trade-in scheme in six villages last year.
Yao鈥檚 village has set up a room for the exchange and locals named it Shengtaimei Supermarket, which means a supermarket for beautiful environment.
Each Monday, Yao and her fellow villagers bring their sorted garbage to the supermarket in exchange for credit points that can be used for products.
On the walls of the supermarket are the illustrations of garbage sorting and the rules for trading credits. 鈥淔ifty plastic bags, 35 plastic bottles or a paper cup of cigarette butts amount to a point,鈥 Yao said. 鈥淭wo points can be traded for a bag of salt and seven points can get me a bottle of soy sauce.鈥
Benefits like this have encouraged villagers to get involved. According to Yin Tongsheng, a civil servant in the township, since the scheme began, more than 1,700 households have opened credit accounts 鈥 almost half the township鈥檚 population.
鈥淭here has been nearly 20,000 times of exchanges and villagers have traded more than 20 tons of garbage for daily goods worth over 100,000 yuan (US$14,000),鈥 Yin said.
At first, Yao, like many others, was too embarrassed to pick up garbage. Now, as she sees more people do it, she carries a refuse bag everywhere.
鈥淲e have come to realize that there is no shame protecting the environment,鈥 she said. 鈥淲ith more and more senior people joining us, it鈥檚 hard to find any litter in our village now.鈥
Fan Lili, who offers guidance for sorting garbage in the supermarket, said the adults鈥 enthusiasm has influenced their children, who have become more aware of environmental protection and garbage sorting.
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