KEEP ‘EM SEPARATED: Hangzhou Tries to Reduce Waste, Uses “Naming and Shaming” Tactic to Change Public Behavior
Hangzhou currently counts 8.7 million residents in its population. Each resident generates roughly 1.2 kg (2.64 lbs) of garbage per day, resulting in roughly 7,000 total tons of waste citywide daily. 100% of Hangzhou’s waste is treated innocuously, according to the Chinese government’s definition. This means it is either treated by incineration or composting, or disposed of in a sanitary landfill. At present, 48% of Hangzhou municipal solid waste (MSW) is incinerated, and 52% is landfilled; though that ratio regularly varies by about five percent.
Hangzhou’s largest landfill, Tianziling, is quickly reaching the end of its life due to growing rates of waste generation. Hangzhou MSW is rising approximately 17% each year, well above the rough 10% average for most other Chinese cities. That factor, combined with land scarcity, has prompted the city to significantly increase incineration capacity in recent years.
The composition of MSW in Hangzhou has also been a catalyst in the uptake of waste-to-energy technologies. This is because it has a higher share of easily combustibles, like paper and cardboard, than most Chinese cities.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.
Hangzhou MSW Composition, by type
An estimated 23% of Hangzhou’s MSW, and much of its most combustible content, is diverted from municipal collection and treatment by the informal sector, often referred to as scrap peddlers or scavengers. Consequently, Hangzhou’s waste-to-energy (WtE) facilities wind up with a less than ideal mix of waste to incinerate.
The solution to that problem and to waste piling up quicker than the city can build new WtE plants, believes city officials, is household waste separation.
As in other cities, like Shanghai, the Hangzhou government has rolled out a program to increase resident participation and achieve the goal of pre-sorted waste. However, Hangzhou’s pilot scheme looks a little different from its peers.
Having initiated a waste program on a very limited basis in 2006, Hangzhou this year rolled out a separation program in earnest. It has so far been extended to about 55% of city residents. Corresponding regulations require residents and organizations falling under the scheme to put garbage into four different colored bins labeled recyclable waste, kitchen waste, hazardous waste and other waste.
Residents are provided a color-coded bag to assist with sorting. However, for roughly the last year, and unlike programs in other cities, each bag bears a number corresponding to a unique household. Neighborhood “mavens” (the ones wielding arm bands) and, from time to time, sanitation workers are tasked to evaluate the sorting behavior of residents and address improper classification publicly. It’s a “naming and shaming” tactic that the city hopes will work to change people’s behavior.
Before the new naming system was introduced, the waste separation initiative met with flagging results in Hangzhou, as had been the case in other cities, like Beijing and Shanghai.
Some say the system is working. Vice director of one of the communities in the program, Yao Jie, reckons “more than 80% of the garbage is correctly disposed” now, compared with 66% without the household name system.
Yet residents are going to have to do even better to achieve the city’s goal of 90% separation citywide by 2013. Towards those ends, the city has held trainings for neighborhood leaders, distributed educational materials and set up an informational website and hotline.
That alone does not appear to be enough.
Waste experts assent that, without financial incentives in the form of reduced fees for proper classification or fines for improper classification, it is virtually impossible to change personal habits in the aggregate. Hangzhou residents do not pay any waste management fees to the city at present; though as of next year that is expected to change.
Though the rates have not been released yet, there has not been any indication that a “pay as you throw” fee schedule – a fail-safe way to achieve better sorting and waste reduction – is under consideration. Rather, it is believed that the city will charge residents a waste collection fee based on their water consumption, a method currently being tested in a few southern Chinese cities.
While NEEDigest understands the administrative nightmare that would come with trying to collect waste management fees from every household – in Hangzhou, like most Chinese cities, neighborhoods have common rubbish bins for multiple households, making it all but impossible to easily determine how much each household disposes – there is little evidence to suggest that water consumption and waste disposal are coupled at the household level in any statistically significant way. Moreover, unless water / trash fees are set high enough, economically privileged households will maintain high levels of consumption / disposal.
In any case, under this system, wealthy and poorer residents alike will be free to throw away as much as they want without consequence as long as they don’t keep the tap on while they take out the trash. This could make the goal of waste reduction even farther out of reach.
In the next post, NEEDigest will examine the impact Hangzhou’s “clean and direct” waste management system is having on the informal waste collection sector.