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Civilized Kunming

Ishmael (462 posts) • -2

I agree: straws are complete bullshit. There are better substitutes for breastfeeding, including breastfeeding.

herenow (357 posts) • +2

That is among the more hilarious posts in recent memory, although (probably) unintentionally so...

dolphin (509 posts) • -8
Comment hidden by user downvote Click to expand

ishmael, what would you say about nipple shaped reusable straws?

now air france is adding a tax for flying. do they care more about the environment or collecting more taxes? why don't they build solar-powered planes?

l4dybug (89 posts) • -1

JanJal, I seek your counsel as you're now the de facto resident recycling guru. [attaching recycling pin badge on your chest]

I've been hording organic wastes such as egg shells, inedible parts of tomatoes, whatnot. I collect them in plastic bags. Is that what you do? Do you throw the plastic bags away in community trash bins outside? As of yet, there aren't any red bins for organic waste.

Also, do custodians separate these organic waste when they sort out the trash? Do they manually remove them from my plastic bag? Or is that done at the next municipal dump stop?

And to tie this subject to current affairs of proposed incinerators in Wuhan. Do they incinerate organic waste separately or lump them with their plastic containers? My understanding is these large scale incinerator plants are expensive. The cheaper ones aren't effective in filtration. My hunch is they probably don't have the wherewithal to individually sort wastes prior to incineration, let alone only incinerate non-hazardous organics. This perhaps explains the nimbyism and local unrest.

JanJal (1243 posts) • 0

[gives back the badge]

There are no sorting regulations or recycling functions for organic waste in Kunming at all currently. Maybe some individual households outside the city use composting themselves, if they happen to have garden or such.

If we go back a bit, Shanghai started to implement regulations for organic waste just few weeks ago. They fine at least restaurants and other enterprises that fail to handle their organic waste properly - I'm not sure if they also fine individuals.

I don't know how the organic waste is treated in Shanghai past that. I do assume that if there are separate bins for organic waste, it is responsibility of the users to separate plastic and other recyclable material from from the organic waste prior to putting it in the bin.

My current information for Kunming (not to be trusted blindly), is that Kunming will implement similar requirements at the end of October this year. How much similar, I don't know.

So, for the time being there is nothing about

organic waste in Kunming.

Currently our organic waste goes to mixed waste, which then is taken for incineration. I don't know how much they sort it thereafter.

cloudtrapezer (756 posts) • 0

Our bins are marked recyclable and non recyclable. But like a lot of things round here it's just for show. I'm sceptical things will change much in October. There are the old folk and the commercial collection centres. Lot's of them but hard to say how effective on a macro scale. There must be an academic study somewhere

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

Our bins are also marked the same as @cloud. Then the person empties both sets of rubbish into one wheelie bin, before moving on to the next set of bins.

The only things that get separated are those of easy recycle/cash value, like cardboard and plastic bottles.
We will see what happens in October, and see what transpires with domestic waste separation in Shanghai. Businesses are easy to inspect and control, but in a qiaoqu the waste is usually a mixture from different residences; which would be difficult to monitor and control.

JanJal (1243 posts) • 0

I think the current recyclable vs non-recyclabe bins primarily serve to ease the burden of those elder people who collect recyclables of value. If only people didn't dump their left-over noodles in those bins.

If this worked perfectly, then the trucks and smaller vehicles collecting trash woudn't even have to empty those recyclable bins unless they're full.

As there currently is no recycling for organic waste at all, it requires some new large scale infrastructure to make it work.

If such would be managed by local government, it would be easy to just note from what xiagous such trucks arrive from, and fine the whole neighbourhood collectively if must.

For example in our neighbourhood (which is all houses managed by Junfa), it would then mean increases in annual management fees for all residents.

People would eventually start to look after their neighbours, and this is something where I think it is more justified than in some other areas.

herenow (357 posts) • 0

@JanJal wrote: "People would eventually start to look after their neighbours..."

The mask slips

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