Shenzhen is now able to collect 8,398 tons of sorted garbage each day, enabling the garbage recycling rate to reach 40.5 percent after the city officially implemented the garbage classification regulation Sept. 1, the Shenzhen Municipal Urban Management and Law Enforcement Bureau said yesterday.
The recycling rate reached is already ahead of schedule for the goal set in the city’s 2020 work scheme on garbage classification.
From Sept. 1 to Monday, the authority filed 3,918 citations to violators of the city’s garbage sorting regulation and issued fines amounting to some 1.23 million yuan (US$188,313).
Positive results have been seen in Shenzhen after the regulation was introduced.
According to the urban management and law enforcement bureau, the amount of daily recyclables, such as used furniture and glass waste, has increased from 2,060 tons 100 days ago to 2,760 tons. The amount of hazardous waste collected has increased from 420 kilograms per day to 790 kilograms per day.
The amount of daily kitchen waste collected has increased from 2,530 tons to 5,640 tons while the disposal volume of other wastes was reduced from 19,334 tons per day to 15,858 tons per day, down 18 percent.
At present, education related to garbage sorting has been conducted for 95.6 percent of the families in the city. Garbage sorting has covered 3,823 residential communities and 1,716 urban villages across the city.
The city also built waste-processing facilities at 118 venues, including two hazardous waste disposal stations, 10 stations for fabric waste, 16 for used furniture and 59 for kitchen waste.
The authority said that they are planning to build a smart supervision system to better manage the entire handling process of garbage produced in the city.
The bureau also cooperated with China’s Internet giant Baidu to release a big data search report on Shenzhen’s garbage sorting yesterday.
The report suggested that the online search for garbage sorting information by residents in Shenzhen increased 201 percent Sept. 1, especially among residents living in Futian, Nanshan, Longgang, Bao’an and Longhua districts.
Environmental awareness of residents has improved, as shown by the report. Art and popular science exhibitions related to garbage sorting were more welcomed by residents.
Moreover, female residents and those who were born after 1980 are the groups that searched for content related to garbage sorting the most.
In addition, “kitchen waste” is the key phrase that was searched most frequently by residents in Shenzhen, according to the report.