Bureau announces garbage sorting figures

The amount of wet trash and recyclable garbage sorted out in the city grew significantly last month, Shanghai's greenery and public sanitation authorities said on Friday.

A total of 9,796 tons of wet garbage were separated daily in the city in May, a surge of 73 percent from the same period last year, according to the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau.

In total, 6,266 tons of recyclable waste were sorted daily last month, soaring 143 percent from May in 2019, it said.

As a result, 15,351 tons of dry trash were collected daily last month, a drop of 31 percent from the same period last year, according to the bureau.

Garbage sorting at more than 95 percent of 13,000 residential communities and villages across Shanghai will be brought up to standard this year, the city's greenery authorities announced earlier.

Last year's figure was 90 percent with Shanghai's new trash-sorting regulations effective, compared with 15 percent at the end of 2018, according to the bureau.

Last year, 87 percent of enterprises in Shanghai had their garbage-sorting performance up to standard, and this will be lifted to over 95 percent this year, the bureau said.

More than 6,000 tons of recyclable waste and about 9,000 tons of wet garbage will be sorted every day in the city this year, compared with 4,049 and 7,453 tons respectively last year.

As a result, the 2020 goal of daily handling of dry garbage has been set at below 16,800 tons, compared with 17,731 tons last year.