问政风暴（12-80）：垃圾分类贵在坚持

彭澎接受香港《南华早报》采访

 

广州尝试垃圾分类处理

2012年7月15日

 

ENVIRONMENT

Guangzhou tries to sort out its rubbish problem

Pilot schemes seen as long-term solution to tackling

waste, but previous projects have had little success

......................................................

Sally Wang

sally.wang@scmp.com

 

Three pilot rubbish-sorting schemes

kicked off in Guangzhou last week,

with officials and the media going all

out to promote them as a long-term

solution to mountains of waste

engulfing the city.

But following strong opposition

to government plans to build five

incinerators in the city, the launch of

the pilot schemes has met with a

mixed response.

Civil servants, housewives, students

and volunteers are being

mobilised to lead a campaign to

make sure everyone knows about the

new policy, with several communities

involved in the pilot schemes, all

based on a Taiwanese experience.

The government has also vowed

to spend more on sorting and transport

of rubbish and set up a public

committee to monitor its expenditure.

It spent 2.2 billion yuan

(HK$2.67 billion) on handling garbage

last year.

By the end of this year, all the

communities on more than 130

streets will be part of garbage-sorting

trial schemes. The Guangzhou Daily

reported that the city plans to fully

adopt rubbish sorting by 2015.

Many people have said that

sorting garbage to separate out recyclable

items is much better than just

burning everything in incinerators.

However, while most support the

idea, some have concerns about how

the sorting will actually work and

have doubts about the government’s

commitment.

One of the pilot schemes features

“volume-based fees”. Each family

will receive 60 bags a month – 30 for

kitchen waste and 30 for other rubbish

– designed to hold 3kg a day.

Residents will be charged more if

they need more bags.

Some are concerned that costs

could increase – each household now

pays a garbage fee of 15 yuan a month

– and others have complained that

the scheme is unfair to large families.

The Information Times says the

scheme is designed to reduce the

average amount of household waste

to 1kg per person each day.

People have also raised concerns

about who will profit from the mandatory

use of special bags. “I want to

know where the extra bag fee will go

and which company produces the

garbage bags,” said Wang Xin ,a

Haizhu district resident.

Under another scheme, people

will have to sort their rubbish at home

into three bags, and trucks will arrive

at specified times to collect it. If they

miss the collecting time, residents

will have to wait until the following

day. People worry about the inconvenience,

with those who do not work

regular hours likely to often miss

waste collection times.

Privacy concerns have been

raised over the third scheme, under

which special identification marks

will be attached to each bag so that

the origin of the waste can be determined,

allowing the authorities to

discover who is not sorting their rubbish

properly and impose fines.

Yu Shangfeng ,head of the

garbage-sorting division at the city’s

urban management committee, was

quoted by the Southern Metropolis

Daily as saying that the government

would decide after the pilot programmes

whether to combine the

three schemes into one or whether to

adopt different schemes in different

communities.

One woman taking part in a pilot

scheme said history showed that the

city government had problems carrying

out such schemes.

“Guangzhou has had campaigns

to control cigarettes and plastic bags,

but they both went nowhere,” she

said. “Maybe this is just another

show.”

She said she had previously asked

the sanitation department how she

should dispose of used batteries and

had been told that even if they were

handed in separately the department

would still put them back with other

garbage.

An online survey found that about

40 per cent of respondents were worried

that even if they sorted their rubbish,

the waste would still not be processed

properly.

Some have asked whether the

government will put in the necessary

effort to educate residents, and especially

the elderly, about garbage

sorting.

“No one has taught us how to do it

and I really have no idea, not to mention

my parents,” said Zhang Bo

, another Haizhu district resident

in her 30s.

Ma Tian , a Panyu district

resident, said he noticed that another

rubbish bin of a different colour was

placed in front of his building about a

month ago, but he had no idea what it

was for.

“We just put garbage in whichever

bin is not full,” he said, adding that he

had noticed that the garbage collectors

just piled the rubbish into one

truck anyway.

It is not the first time the city has

attempted to introduce garbage

sorting. It introduced bins for sorted

rubbish more than 10 years ago, with

little impact, and then ran a pilot programme

in its Yuexiu district two

years ago, again without much

success.

Peng Peng , deputy director

of the Guangdong Society of Economic

Reform, attributed the previous

failures to a lack of accompanying

measures and publicity.

“Although residents sorted their

garbage, the waste was still mixed

together in the process of collecting

and transporting,” he said.

“The garbage sorting was practically

meaningless.”