Suzhou, Jiangsu Province will enter the ＂compulsory era＂ of garbage classification in the middle of next year.

The picture shows Suzhou promoting waste sorting and guiding education activities into enterprises, communities and campuses. Image provided by Suzhou Environmental Sanitation Management Office.

Source: Xinhua Daily

　　With the introduction of local laws and regulations on garbage classification in various places, this new "trend" of garbage classification is emerging. As one of the 46 key cities of garbage classification in China, Suzhou is expected to usher in the "compulsory era" of garbage classification in mid-2020. Are Suzhou citizens ready for compulsory garbage sorting? Are the 1123 garbage sorting communities ready for the plan? Is the garbage disposal terminal matching the four categories complete? With these questions, the reporter started an interview.

　　Compulsory classification will be ushered in the middle of next year.

　　On August 15th, after a deliberation by the Suzhou Municipal People’s Congress, the Regulations on the Management of Domestic Waste Classification in Suzhou (Draft for Hearing) was officially announced, and a three-day legislative hearing is scheduled to begin on September 3rd. According to the timetable, the "Suzhou Municipal Domestic Waste Classification Management Regulations (Draft)" will be reviewed in October this year, revised and submitted to the Provincial People’s Congress. The regulations are expected to be officially implemented as early as the middle of next year. In fact, garbage sorting is nothing new to Suzhou people. Since 2000, Suzhou has begun to publicize the concept of garbage classification to the public. In 2012, Suzhou put forward the system of "large diversion and fine classification", and gradually piloted the construction of waste classification communities in urban areas. At present, there are 1123 garbage sorting communities in Suzhou, with a coverage rate of 75.9%. "After nearly 20 years of publicity and promotion, the current situation is that almost all ordinary people know the importance of garbage classification, but when it comes to action, the participation rate and classification accuracy are not high enough." Gan Lei, deputy director of the Waste Classification Management Center of Suzhou Environmental Sanitation Department, said that from the situation of the pilot communities, the equipment and facilities have been put in place, and many communities have explored many characteristic experiences from their own actual conditions. Moshe Community of Yuexi Street in Wuzhong District has been exploring the classification of kitchen waste since 2014. "The promotion of garbage sorting and the improvement of community governance are carried out together." Chen Gang, deputy secretary of the Moshe Community Party Committee, said frankly,"From the fact that residents don’t understand littering to taking the initiative to sort garbage now, it takes a lot of thought for community workers to come to the door and communicate with residents actively." Nowadays, the kitchen waste sorting and recycling in Moshe Phase I and Phase II residential areas has basically achieved full coverage. Next, the third phase of high-rise residential buildings and shops in Wu Shan Street will soon be included. The expansion project of kitchen waste treatment station in the community is under preparation, and it is expected that the daily processing capacity will be increased from 600 kg to 3 tons after completion. No.42 Minzhi Road Community is located in the Grand Park Community of Shuangta Street, gusu district. It is a miniature community with only four residential buildings. "There used to be an electric horn to remind residents to throw garbage, but now everyone has developed a habit and it is not needed at all." Gu Genmu, the head of the autonomous committee of the community, told the reporter that at present, the fixed-point and timed garbage delivery mode is implemented. Every day from 5: 30 pm to 6 pm, residents will take the initiative to put bags containing kitchen waste in the collection and transportation vehicles. A three-color list of garbage classification is also posted in the community, and the garbage classification of each household is evaluated every month. "Although it is not in the list of Suzhou waste sorting community, the enthusiasm of residents to participate is very high. It is our initiative to apply to the district for garbage sorting." Su Jiarong, secretary of the Party Committee of the Great Park Community, said that in the first half of this year, residents discussed how to classify garbage together. They gave full play to the power of autonomy and held six meetings during this period, and finally decided on the garbage classification and delivery plan. “I hope to use this community as a pilot, spread it, drive other surrounding communities, and form a good atmosphere for garbage sorting. "

　　It’s not as difficult to classify garbage as you think.

　　Although garbage classification has been established in Suzhou, the news of "compulsory classification" has aroused heated discussion once it spread. "Someone are to ask me, how? There is no formula. " Sun Guiying, a 75-year-old retired teacher, often advocates garbage sorting in the community on weekdays and has become a classified expert in the eyes of residents. Recently, she also saw many "paragraphs" of garbage classification on the Internet. After the fun, she was also rethinking: Is it so difficult to classify garbage into good categories? "It’s really not as difficult to classify garbage into good categories as expected. It is also an important task to make the propaganda of garbage classification easy to understand. " He Sheng, deputy director of Suzhou Environmental Sanitation Department, is deeply touched by this. At present, the garbage classification in Suzhou is gradually changing from "three-point classification" (recyclables, harmful waste and other garbage) to "four-point classification", that is, "perishable garbage" is listed on the basis of "three-point". Perishable waste includes kitchen waste from catering industry, kitchen waste from residents and organic waste from farmers’ markets. "There is no need to memorize garbage classification ‘ Raiders ’ The simplest way is to get rid of a small amount of harmful waste and recyclable garbage, and residents only need to separate the kitchen waste. If they really can’t identify what kind it is,Can be put into ‘ Other ’ Trash can ""With some guidance, residents can learn the concept of garbage classification faster. " At 7 o’clock on the morning of August 1st, Ni Bulian, a garbage collector and transporter, started his day’s work in a kitchen waste collection vehicle. He picked up a bag of garbage with 12 402 house signs and showed it to the reporter: "Just like this, after weighing, open the bag to check the quality of garbage separation, scan the QR code to evaluate the points, and the corresponding householder can immediately receive feedback." At present, there are more than 460 households in Shishan Mingmen Community, and there are about 410 households involved in garbage sorting. By means of information technology, residents can master the knowledge of garbage classification as soon as possible. The "Suzhou Garbage Classification" WeChat WeChat official account has opened a column of "Classification Dictionary", and you can query the corresponding garbage category by entering the name of the item. At present, the dictionary is constantly being updated and entered, which will cover more kinds of daily items.

　　The matching of kitchen waste treatment capacity needs to be accelerated.

　　Legislation is a tonic to promote waste sorting. Does it mean that once legislation is enacted, the effect of waste sorting will be immediate? Relevant experts believe that this is not the case in cities that have already carried out compulsory garbage classification. Garbage classification is a systematic project, involving government, community, residents and other parties, including classified delivery, classified collection, classified transportation, classified treatment and other links. The whole chain must be coordinated to make garbage classification truly become a new fashion. Take the classified treatment of kitchen waste in Suzhou as an example. The data shows that the kitchen waste of residents accounts for more than 60% of the total domestic waste. It can be said that kitchen waste is a well-deserved main force to reduce the source of waste. Effectively separating kitchen waste can greatly reduce the amount of waste entering domestic waste incineration plants and landfills. At present, there are three modes of kitchen waste treatment in Suzhou: "on-site+collaborative+centralized". "On-site" refers to the use of small-scale on-site treatment facilities for disposal in conditional residential areas, and "collaboration" refers to the use of organic waste in farmers’ markets and rural compostable waste treatment facilities for collaborative disposal. "Centralized" refers to the centralized transportation of kitchen waste to kitchen waste (kitchen waste) treatment facilities for disposal. The actual treatment situation is that the farmers’ market has achieved full coverage, but only more than 60 garbage sorting communities in the community have implemented "four classification".Most garbage classification communities still adopt the original "three classifications". It is reported that the most important reason why there is no rush for full coverage is that the capacity of kitchen waste terminal disposal has not been completely matched. At present, the classified household kitchen waste will be transported to Suzhou kitchen waste treatment plant to be treated together with the kitchen waste generated by the catering industry. However, the daily processing capacity of the kitchen waste treatment plant that has been operated is about 1000 tons, while the actual amount of kitchen waste produced in Suzhou is about 800 tons per day, and the surplus processing capacity of 200 tons can be used to cooperatively treat the kitchen waste generated by residents’ families. According to reports, apart from the processing cost, the current terminal location is difficult and the processing equipment technology is not mature, which are all difficult problems faced by Suzhou, which is also a common problem faced by the whole country in dealing with kitchen waste. The good news is that many places in Suzhou are currently building kitchen waste treatment plants. The organic waste (kitchen waste) treatment center in the park has been running stably, the kitchen waste treatment plants in Wujiang District and High-tech Zone have been put into trial operation, and the kitchen waste treatment plant in Xiangcheng District is still under construction. Next, the kitchen waste treatment plants in industrial parks and high-tech zones will further enhance their treatment capacity on the existing basis. (Gu Ting, Chen Nanfei, Zhang Hanwen, Sun Yi)