Zhejiang trash organizer tells how to sort waste properly
Print Edition
Starting last year, Chen Xuefen, a “garbage sorting instructor” in east China’s Zhejiang Province, has been using her smart phone to give talks on trash.
She scans the QR code on any garbage bag in the trash can, and immediately knows who threw it away.
“We get free garbage bags from our community committee. Every household is given bags with different QR codes,” said Chen. If residents do not sort their waste correctly, instructors come to their homes to show them how to do it properly. “In the past, we had no idea who had thrown what away,” said Chen.
She is one of hundreds of “garbage sorting instructors” in Huachuan community where she and over 10,000 other residents live.
As volunteers, the instructors are meant to help residents to manage household waste, especially kitchen waste, which accounts for half of all household waste.
“In Huachuan, currently more than 90 percent of residents know how to sort household waste,” said Chen, noting it was very different from the situation in 2012.
Built in the 1980s, Huachuan generates about 1,500 liters of garbage a day, which was previously dumped, taken away, burned and buried.
Though Zhejiang introduced garbage sorting in 2010, progress was less than satisfactory.
Since 2012, Huachuan’s public dustbins have been allocated to “kitchen waste,” “recyclables,” “hazardous waste” and “other.”
Every year, the community spends about 300,000 yuan (US$45,000) on bins and bags to encourage residents to separate their own waste. In 2016, the sacks with QR codes appeared.
Yu Fuling, the Party secretary in Huachuan, said “if trash is not sorted, waste cannot be fully reused or recycled, and the disposal process is harder.” According to Yu, Huachuan community workers write brochures and give lectures on how to sort out garbage, and organize volunteers to provide door-to-door guidance.
Currently, the rate of household garbage sorting in Huachuan is about 70 percent, said Yu.
In Zhejiang Province, 11 cities have run household waste sorting campaigns.
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