Podcast: Story in the Story (7/16/2019 Tue.)
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From the People's Daily app.

And this is Story in the Story. 

China will invest $3 trillion in garbage processing facilities, and by 2025, cities at or above the prefecture will offer garbage sorting and processing systems.

The sanitation industry in China is in an expansion phase with tight cash flows, but the industry offers plenty of room for growth.

As China launches garbage sorting work among cities at the prefecture level, some are wondering whether an opportunity to invest has presented itself.

While more cities implement advanced garbage sorting measures, analysts have said that demand for waste sorting, storage, collection, transportation equipment, and services will increase.

Moreover, employment opportunities like waste sorter, inspector, project manager, and sanitation engineer frequently appear on job recruitment websites.

Today's Story in the Story looks at how China's garbage sorting initiative has given rise to new revenue streams while improving sanitation in cities across the country.

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Eight categories of smart trash bins at a residential community in Beijing's Xicheng district. (Photo: GT) 

A residential community in Beijing's Xicheng district caught public attention due to their use of intelligent technologies such as facial recognition and QR code scanning to facilitate residential garbage sorting. 

A camera and a small screen on each trash bin can automatically recognize a resident's face and open the trash bin. Before that, residents had to scan a QR code via WeChat. 

The automatic garbage bag vendor in the community allows residents to scan the QR code and receive free trash bags for a month. 

"One drop of kitchen waste can gain one point on your account, which can be used in exchange for daily necessities like eggs and shampoo every Thursday morning," said one resident surnamed Liu.

"Waste sorting in our community has been doing really well. Smart bins help facilitate our work as you don't need to open the bin yourself, so it is much more hygienic as well,” Liu explained.

Distinct from the four types of garbage sorting in Shanghai, waste in Beijing is divided into eight categories-- kitchen waste, other waste, metal, textiles, paper, plastics, toxic and harmful garbage, battery and electronic garbage. 

A community staff said the garbage sorting started in 2012.

29 smart technology bins have been installed at various places within the community. 

The community has 1,900 households, and more than 1,700 have signed the garbage sorting agreement.

Although over half of the residents sort their garbage, the community requires sanitation workers to conduct a second round, said one sanitation employee surnamed Zhu, who has been working there for 12 years.

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Residents of Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang Province play games at the city's garbage-sorting activity on Children's Day on June 1. (Photo: Courtesy of Qiu Yong, head of the general office of the garbage-sorting education institute)

A second sorting is done to collect kitchen waste, which will be resolved by a waste decomposition machine with biological enzymes that could accelerate the liquefaction of kitchen waste.

A job inspecting garbage sorting could pay upwards of $60 a day. During the last week of June 2019 there were 53 new registered garbage sorting companies.

At present, China's garbage sorting industry does not have one giant company, but it will eventually have one in the future, analysts have predicted.  

Garbage clearance and transportation requires qualification licenses, which are issued by the government. As the industry grows, licenses will become valuable.

Meanwhile, trash sorting awareness is growing.

In Taizhou, in East China's Zhejiang Province, officials launched the country's first garbage-sorting education institute to promote public awareness. 

The institute, jointly built by Taizhou garbage-sorting authorities and Taizhou Radio and Television University, is a comprehensive platform that offers free online and offline courses. 

The institute was established to promote cooperation between the government, public organizations, and citizens, said Qiu Yong.

"Citizens are actually the main force behind the project," said Ding Yaping, deputy head of the general office of the institute.

People can apply to take classes and join activities, Ding said, noting the institute is aimed at increasing a child's sense of garbage recycling and sorting.

The institute launched a series of activities for students during their summer vacation, Qiu said.

For example, an activity named "where the garbage goes" would organize primary and middle school students to visit local demonstration residential areas, garbage transfer stations, refuse landfills and incinerators where the waste disposal work runs.

(Produced by Nancy Yan Xu, Lance Crayon, Brian Lowe and Paris Yelu Xu. Music by: bensound.com. Text from China Daily and Global Times.)