Shanghai temple promotes correct waste disposal

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

Shanghai's Jade Buddha Temple has installed rubbish bins based on waste classification. 

The temple, built in 1882 and renowned for its Jade Buddha, is one of the city’s most popular sites, attracting 1.2 million visitors a year, a third from abroad.

More than a dozen bins for recyclable, dry and wet waste have been installed among the pavilions in its vegetarian restaurant and working, meditation and dining rooms as well as dormitory of the monks.

Each bin is color-coded as well as illustrated and labeled in Chinese, English and Japanese with examples of what type of garbage should be dumped. 

"The practice aims to promote waste classification among the temple's hundreds of monks, thousands of volunteers and tens of thousands of devout worshippers," said Venerable Ti Ting, deputy director of the temple's affairs department.

"Worshippers from across the city are encouraged to follow the practice back home and promote it among their families and friends."

The Buddhist temple decided to promote waste classification after the city published its first domestic garbage management regulation, which takes effect in July. 

Pilot programs have started in local communities to color-coded garbage bins and vehicles.

Figures show Shanghai processed nearly 260,000 tons of household garbage each day in 2018. Garbage recycling is a necessary and effective method to reduce that amount.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

Ti Ting, who has a master's degree in education management from the University of Redlands in the United States, started researching garbage classification in 2017. 

When he accompanied Jue Xing, the abbot of the temple, on a visit to Japan, they saw well-categorized rubbish bins on streets, in museums and on ferries.

"The abbot realized the practice should be studied at the temple where a large amount of paper wrappings were thrown away every day," Ti Ting recalled. 

The the color and layout of the garbage bins was designed to avoid spoiling the temple's historic ambiance while making it clear to visitors which bins to use.

The temple also plans to invest some 200,000 yuan (US$29,723) to build a garbage shed, featuring a treatment machine that can dry and compress kitchen waste to reduce the burden on nearby garbage stations, Ti Ting said.

Professionals were invited to the temple in early March to train about 600 monks, volunteers, employees and worshippers on garbage sorting.

They will guide and promote the habit among the large number of daily visitors.

The bins have been a success already with many visitors using them.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

Anastasia D'Agostini, from Miami, the US, said she had not realized that food and paper waste should be sorted until she saw the color-coded bins near the grand hall of the temple.

"It is a good idea to set up such bins at such a popular tourist spot to make people conscious of the habit," she said.

Chris Zizza, a wooden floor industry businessman also from the US, said the illustrations on the bins remind him of waste classifications back home.

"Such bins should be placed everywhere in the city," he suggested.

To better promote sorting, the temple has also published a pamphlet and advocated on its official WeChat account, using cartoon characters to promote the garbage-sorting requirements. 

The first batch of 1,000 pamphlets have been distributed to visitors and more will be printed.

"I'm sure this is something that a Buddhist temple should have because I've heard Buddhists in China advocate good behavior," said Ana Sousa, a tourist from Brazil.

Abbot Jue Xing, who is also vice president of the Buddhist Association of China, said: "From the perspective of Buddhism, everything in the world is interrelated and interdependent. Human beings are part of nature.

"We must cherish natural resources and shouldn't waste or pollute them. As monks, we have the duty to promote these virtues."

Ti Ting said worshippers who pray elsewhere are expected to promote the garbage-sorting practice.