Protest in China highlights the need for action on garbage

Street protests by thousands of residents in central China offer a compelling reminder that the mainland needs to fast-track waste-sorting and recycling efforts.

They have been demonstrating with banners and chants against a waste-to-energy incinerator that they fear could be built near their homes in Yangluo, near Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

Residents were prompted to march by plans to build the plant on a landfill site that they had expected would be turned into a public park.

They have not been convinced by a letter from the Xinzhou district government saying a site for the incinerator had yet to be finalised and demolition work on the landfill site was for a rail project.

Regardless of plans for the site, the issue provides an urgent context to Shanghai’s introduction of compulsory household garbage sorting, ahead of a national law to regulate it.