Trash separation takes hold in Shanghai

The volume of recyclable and wet garbage sorted in Shanghai has grown significantly this year as new trash-sorting efforts take effect, local greenery authorities said on Friday.

Some 4,500 tons of garbage were sorted each day as of the end of August, a five-fold increase from the end of 2018, according to the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau.

Meanwhile, 9,200 tons of wet garbage are sorted daily in Shanghai, marking an increase of 130 percent over the same period, authorities said.

As a result, daily handling of dry garbage has decreased to 15,500 tons, down 26 percent, the bureau said.

As garbage-sorting efforts continue across the city, the renovation of some 20,000 garbage-sorting and disposal sites as well as the upgrading of signage on about 40,000 street garbage bins has been completed.

Shanghai now has a fleet of 1,092 vehicles for wet garbage transportation, 3,197 for dry garbage, 80 for hazardous waste and 154 for recyclables, according to the bureau.

These vehicles have unified logos and are sealed during transportation to avoid garbage mixing.

A total of 9,609 collection service stations for recyclable trash have been set up across the city, together with 144 transition sites for recyclables, and eight large collection centers for recyclables.