China's recycling revolution: Shanghai asks ‘What trash are you?’
- Inside the new waste disposal system brought in for tens of millions of residents
- The hype versus the truth on hi-tech trash cans, RFID chips and the social credit system
While the world struggled to cope with the changes wrought by China’s National Sword policy, some 26 million people in Shanghai had a challenge of their own starting in July of 2019.
It was a new policy aimed at changing how Shanghai collects and deals with its waste, and brought in a new system of four bins which separated wet, dry, toxic and recyclable materials. The residents and netizens greeted this new system with many different reactions, memes and quips on social media, all boiling down to one basic question asked of all residents when they visit these four bins: what trash are you?
SCMP podcast producer Yang Yang visits a Shanghai household to find out how the new system is working for one family, then goes online to find our what kind of memes are floating around Weibo as well as finding one of the people now offering professional services to sort people’s trash into the four categories.
Richard Brubaker, long-term Shanghai resident and founder and managing director of NGO Collective Responsibility, talks about his company’s work to map the pre-existing network of informal recyclers and trash pickers, and how the new four bin system has affected that.
Brubaker also wades into media reports dominated by stories of hi-tech surveillance and social credit punishments for incorrect trash sorting and talks of the day-to-day realities for Shanghai residents he’s witnessed.
Finally, he reveals there is a much bigger picture here than just bringing in a new waste recycling system for residents in Shanghai. What happens with this programme will inform the policies for China’s megacities into the 21st century, as well as the growing megacities of Indonesia, Thailand and India.
Sources and credits:
Claire Zhang; Shanghai resident
Richard Brubaker; Collective Responsibility
Presenter: Laurie Chen
Shanghai field producer: Yang Yang
Voiceovers: Dayu Zhang, Albert Han, Ryan Swift, Gigi Cho, Chad Bra
