Pilot project aims to reduce trash

Guangzhou residents will be testing a pilot project to reduce the amount of garbage produced in the city.

"The new system requires local residents to pay more when they dump more garbage, and pay less if they dump less," said Bao Lunjun, chief engineer of the Guangzhou administrative committee of urban management.

Currently, every family in the city pays rubbish fees of 15 yuan ($2.40) a month.

Under the new system, each family in the pilot housing estates will receive 60 special liners - 30 for kitchen waste and 30 for other garbage - each month.

Only garbage in the special bags can be dumped in the housing estates' receptacles, or families will be fined, Bao said.

Families needing extra bags will have to buy them.

Pilot projects in designated housing estates start July 10.

The new system is expected to cover the entire city and will help reduce the amount of trash dumped by local residents, Bao said.

Zheng Fenming, director of the institute of modernization strategy at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, said authorities should raise residents' environmental awareness and encourage residents to sort garbage before it reaches the bin.

"In addition to the introduction of the new system to collect rubbish fees, residents who have sorted the garbage at home and reduce rubbish should be rewarded while asking those who dump more garbage should pay higher rubbish fees," he said.

But the fee increase has been questioned by local residents who oppose the new system.

"The hike of the rubbish fees will increase the burden of the city's low-income families," Chen Hongyun, a Guangzhou housewife, told China Daily on Wednesday.

A public hearing should be organized before the new system is formally introduced, she added.

Bao said that Guangzhou, with a population of more than 16 million, plans to be able to deal with more than 15,000 metric tons of garbage a day to help settle the garbage crisis by 2015. The city can now handle about 12,000 tons of garbage a day.

zhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn