Benefits of trash sorting in Beijing easily seen

The benefits of Beijing's mandatory garbage sorting are noticeable after the first month, but improvements are still needed, especially in mixed waste dumping and transport, urban management authorities said on Tuesday.

Li Rugang, deputy director of the Beijing Urban Management Commission, said at a news conference that the positive effect of implementing household garbage sorting was obvious, with the disposal of kitchen waste doubling over the past month in the capital.

"In particular, the sorting of household kitchen waste in Beijing reached 740 tons per day on average in May, an increase of 159 percent from April," before the rules took effect, he said, adding that the distribution of trash bins in communities across the city had also been greatly improved.

"More than half the neighborhoods in Beijing have been equipped so far with bins for sorting trash that were able to cover most areas in the community," he said. "We hope more communities can achieve that in the near future."

The citywide garbage sorting rules in Beijing, which took effect on May 1, require residents to classify their domestic trash into four different categories: kitchen waste, recyclables, hazardous waste and other waste.

Sets of four trash bins in different colors are also being set up in neighborhoods across the city. Green bins are for kitchen waste, blue ones for recyclables, red for hazardous waste and gray for other waste.

Because of the new trash sorting rules, daily disposal and transport of other waste was been reduced in Beijing to 21,800 tons in May, 14 percent below the same period last year, Li said.

A citywide inspection to monitor compliance with the trash sorting was also launched by law enforcement agencies at the beginning of May.

"We spotted nearly 9,000 problems in the implementation of garbage sorting, mainly in the setup of public signs, unclassified trash containers and some signs that were not updated yet," Wen Tianwu, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of City Administration and Law Enforcement, said at the news conference.

"For the next step, we will strictly inspect the dumping and transport of mixed waste, as 34 serious violations were spotted during the inspection," he said. "Individual or departmental violators will be punished severely."