City garbage sorting a 'remarkable' success

Shanghai made remarkable progress in its garbage-sorting campaign last year, the city’s greenery and public sanitation authorities said.

An average of 6,375 tons of recyclable waste was sorted daily last year, soaring 57.5 percent from a year earlier, the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau announced.

A total of 9,504 tons of wet garbage was separated daily on average, up 27.5 percent from 2019.

As a result, 14,200 tons of dry trash was collected daily, a drop of 20 percent from a year earlier.

About 2.57 tons of hazardous trash was sorted daily, over three times that of 2019, the bureau said, and the garbage-sorting performance of 95 percent of Shanghai's residential communities and working units had hit compliance standards.

Residents have mostly formed sorting habits and the city's garbage-sorting campaign has covered residential communities, working units and public venues, bureau officials said.

A whole-process sorting system has been established in the city, with some 21,000 disposal sites upgraded.

The city has a fleet of more than 5,000 vehicles to collect and transport wet, dry, recyclable and hazardous waste, the bureau said.

The city had lifted its household waste incineration capacity by 13,000 tons daily and wet trash handling capacity by 3,900 tons daily between 2015 and 2020, bringing the total to 28,000 tons daily.

It has built about 15,000 recyclable trash collection service spots and the bureau said that zero landfill of household garbage in the city had been basically achieved.