This ambitious plan is not limited to first-tier cities
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 9:50 am
China is, therefore, already learning from Western role models. In 2017, China’s policy-making State Council outlined a strategy to promote ‘garbage sorting’ in major cities. Shanghai recently enforced strict new rules as part of a compulsory recycling program as part of the new Domestic Waste Management Law imposed on July 1, which requires residents to organize their trash into four categories: wet, dry, recyclable and toxic. As one of the largest and most populous cities in the world, it generates more than nine million metric tons of garbage every year. The mandatory scheme stipulates that households and corporate entities abide by the rubbish-sorting guidelines, imposing fines on individual culprits that violate the rules, which aims to implement a nationwide urban waste sorting system in 46 cities by 2025. (Source: here, here and here.)
in China, but smaller and less well-known areas are adopting similar proposals. According to a recent report, Guiyang, a city in China’s southern Guizhou province has recently commenced a garbage sorting, collection, transportation, and disposal system as part of a waste sorting plan 2018 to 2022 (source). This aims to cover 90 percent of households in the city.
This sort of new eco-dictatorship’ is, therefore, still rudimentary and, arguably, fragmented with Chinese cities and local governments adopting schemes, with varying degrees of effort. It can be understood uk phone number database against this current backdrop, then, that China is undergoing a transitional phase in its recycling revolution in a bid to introduce a formal recycling scheme from scratch.
CHINA’S WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Further precedents for China are set by other countries in the region of East Asia and the Pacific. According to the World Bank, this area generated 468 million tons of waste in 2016, of which just under half originated from China. Although the data in question must be critiqued in the context of China as home to 61 percent of the region’s population. While China relies heavily on large armies of waste pickers, which comprise up to 5.6 million people in urban recycling, its Asian counterparts have experienced considerable success in establishing a reputation for its formal recycling schemes. (The full details of the data can be found here.)
China contributed 27.7% of global mismanaged waste
Nicknamed as ‘garbage island’, Taiwan currently has one of the highest recycling rates in the world, taking the concept of ‘eco-dictatorship’ to a new level. This is owing to the establishment of an efficient compulsory recycling program that claims 55 percent of the trash collected from households with the capital, Taipei, achieving a rate of 60 percent.
Taiwan’s competitor, Japan, has also succeeded in establishing a unified, systematic recycling system. Japan’s Container, Packaging and Plastic Recycling Law is the driving force behind these measures, with examples of small towns such as the residents of Kamikatsu separating the waste into 34 separate categories. Through these efforts, the concept of recycling has been deeply cemented into Japanese culture as an essential and habitual skill.
Perhaps then, the issue for China needs to be analyzed in a cultural and educational context. Awareness of issues such as air quality and pollution has grown in recent years, but there is little emphasis on reducing excessive waste, especially among the young generation. And as the evidence indicates, China is lacking the resources, infrastructure and just the ‘know-how’ to impose a unified system of rules and regulations governing waste. Therefore, while critics believe the country is making half-hearted attempts at combating the global battle to reduce
in China, but smaller and less well-known areas are adopting similar proposals. According to a recent report, Guiyang, a city in China’s southern Guizhou province has recently commenced a garbage sorting, collection, transportation, and disposal system as part of a waste sorting plan 2018 to 2022 (source). This aims to cover 90 percent of households in the city.
This sort of new eco-dictatorship’ is, therefore, still rudimentary and, arguably, fragmented with Chinese cities and local governments adopting schemes, with varying degrees of effort. It can be understood uk phone number database against this current backdrop, then, that China is undergoing a transitional phase in its recycling revolution in a bid to introduce a formal recycling scheme from scratch.
CHINA’S WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Further precedents for China are set by other countries in the region of East Asia and the Pacific. According to the World Bank, this area generated 468 million tons of waste in 2016, of which just under half originated from China. Although the data in question must be critiqued in the context of China as home to 61 percent of the region’s population. While China relies heavily on large armies of waste pickers, which comprise up to 5.6 million people in urban recycling, its Asian counterparts have experienced considerable success in establishing a reputation for its formal recycling schemes. (The full details of the data can be found here.)
China contributed 27.7% of global mismanaged waste
Nicknamed as ‘garbage island’, Taiwan currently has one of the highest recycling rates in the world, taking the concept of ‘eco-dictatorship’ to a new level. This is owing to the establishment of an efficient compulsory recycling program that claims 55 percent of the trash collected from households with the capital, Taipei, achieving a rate of 60 percent.
Taiwan’s competitor, Japan, has also succeeded in establishing a unified, systematic recycling system. Japan’s Container, Packaging and Plastic Recycling Law is the driving force behind these measures, with examples of small towns such as the residents of Kamikatsu separating the waste into 34 separate categories. Through these efforts, the concept of recycling has been deeply cemented into Japanese culture as an essential and habitual skill.
Perhaps then, the issue for China needs to be analyzed in a cultural and educational context. Awareness of issues such as air quality and pollution has grown in recent years, but there is little emphasis on reducing excessive waste, especially among the young generation. And as the evidence indicates, China is lacking the resources, infrastructure and just the ‘know-how’ to impose a unified system of rules and regulations governing waste. Therefore, while critics believe the country is making half-hearted attempts at combating the global battle to reduce