China has launched a campaign to encourage more recycling of waste, setting a goal of recycling 35 percent of domestic trash by 2020. Sorting stations, garbage transport and other infrastructure will be established in 46 cities across the country this year.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), schools, bus terminals, airports, hotels, office buildings and shopping malls will be selected as the leads to push forward the program in major urban centers including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing.
Bins indicating different types of garbage will be placed at the sites selected and authorities will organize for their contents to be collected and processed.
The NDRC said that domestic garbage should be classified into three types – hazardous trash, biodegradable trash and recyclables. It explained in an announcement on its website that some trash would cause secondary pollution if it is not sorted out.
The NDRC is also encouraging people to throw their sorted garbage directly into the trash-collecting trucks.
The 46 cities are in relatively developed parts of China, and most of them have carried out pilot waste sorting schemes in the past few years.
China throws out more stuff by weight than the U.S. and has overtaken the U.S. as the world's largest trash generator, Bloomberg reported. The World Bank estimates that China will toss 1.4 million tons of trash a day by 2025.
