If you are in Shanghai and want to throw away a cup of milk tea, be careful! You need to follow these steps: first, pour out any leftover into a wet waste bin; second, put the paper cover into a recyclable waste bin; third, throw the single-use cup into a dry waste bin.
Sound difficult and annoying? You'll have to get used to it. From July 1st, 2019 on, people in Shanghai are required to separate their rubbish according to strict rules.
Why should we separate our rubbish? The answer lies in the increasing amount of waste we are producing. Chinese cities produce over 200 million tons of waste each year, according to China Economic Net. Most of this waste is buried (掩埋) in landfills, which may pollute the water and soil.
Moreover, we are running out of space for new landfills.
In fact, more than half of our waste can be recycled. Recyclable rubbish can be made into new materials. For example, wet rubbish can be used to make gas, heat and many other kinds of useful things. But in order to recycle rubbish efficiently (高效地) , we need to separate our rubbish.
Can't garbage-processing companies (垃圾处理公司) do the separating job? They can. But that requires a lot of work and costs lots of money. Things will become much easier if each of us can separate our own rubbish. Besides, the annoying task of separating might encourage people to produce less waste. Do you still want to buy that milk tea?
