By Xinyi Li, EDITOR

The information is from Chongqing City Administration Bureau on April 13. Chongqing is committed to becoming a “waste-free city”.

According to the Chongqing City Administration Bureau, Chongqing has been promoting garbage sorting on a large scale since 2017. Until now, pilot locations have already covered 23 subdistricts in urban areas, serving 270,000 families. QR codes and smart dustbins enable citizens to easily and more conveniently sort their garbage. Moreover, it makes garbage sorting a new and popular activity bolstering environment-protection actions in Chongqing.

The largest garbage sorting and re-utilization industrial park in China will be opened in Chongqing next year

Collecting 3,979 tons of garbage by using APP

Recently, “Xiaohuanggou”, the smart garbage sorting and recycling machines, have appeared on the roads and streets all over Chongqing.

The garbage bin with “Xiaohuanggou” App

Each “Xiaohuanggou” machine includes a set of six garbage recycling bins in six different colors, where the categories of garbage are indicated clearly. Users can easily scan the QR code in the App, and then the cover of the relevant garbage bin will open. After the citizens dispose of the different types of garbage, including waste paper, textile fabrics, metal, and plastic bottles into the corresponding bins, the machine recognizes and weighs them. Afterward, it calculates and disperses the cash to users based on the market prices of different wastes.

“Xiaohuanggou” has been in Chongqing for over eight months now. Recent statistics reveal, at the end of March, there were 1,470 machines with 455 thousand registered users. They have collected 3,979 tons of garbage, including 2 million plastic bottles.

Where will the garbage go after sorting?

According to Chongqing City Administration Bureau, qualified departments will transport the hazardous wastes to treatment facilities for harmless disposal. The departments in charge will take the recoverable garbage to units, companies, or enterprises of renewable resources which will sort the recyclables and realize resource utilization. Garbage unfit for reutilization is then harmlessly disposed of in waste incineration plants or landfills.

To improve the resource utilization of kitchen wastes, Chongqing has taken the initiative to build collection and treatment systems covering the urban and rural regions. Currently, Chongqing has the largest and most advanced harmless disposal and recycling system for kitchen wastes in China.

The largest garbage sorting and re-utilization industrial park of China

According to the China Association of Urban Environmental Sanitation, there are over 150 million tons of urban house refuses each year around China, with the growth rate of 8% to 10% every year. More specifically, two-thirds of large and medium-sized cities have been surrounded by garbage. Every year in Chinese cities, the loss of the resources caused by garbage is RMB 25 billion to RMB 30 billion.

To further reutilize urban garbage, Chongqing is scheduled to build Luoqi Venous Industrial Park, a garbage sorting and re-utilization industrial park with the largest scale and targeted at the complete garbage types in China. (“Venous Industry” focuses on turning wastes into wealth, cyclic utilization, and transforming the wastes into renewable resources). This industrial park will cover about 3.33 square kilometers. After being put into use in 2020, it will process 1 million tons of kitchen waste, fruit and vegetable waste,  sludge, 600 thousand tons of construction waste, 100 thousand tons of general industrial solid waste, and 50 thousand tons of used oil into resource reutilization annually.

Source: Chongqing Daily News