WP4 RD
In recent years, the garbage classification issue has become increasingly urgent in China. The increase in population results in a sharp increase in the household waste produced. However, the growth in current landfill and incineration capacity cannot keep up with the increase in waste. Specifically, Zhengzhou, one of the second-tier or new first-tier cities, produces more than 8000 tons of household waste per day with only 4000 tons plus 1000 tons of incineration capacity in the two incineration plants. Chinese media uses the word “垃圾围城”, which means “garbage ‘besieges’ the city”, to represent the current situation. Fushen Wang, the head of the Zhengzhou Garbage Classification Office, said during an interview that “since the speed of incineration plant construction can not keep up with the waste increment, we are in urgent need of waste classification to reduce, recycle, and safely dispose of waste.” The phenomenon of cities besieged by garbage is unique to China. The world generates 2.1 billion tons of municipal solid waste, but “only 16% is recycled while 46% is disposed of unsustainably”. Therefore, finding locally adapted ways to effectively recycle and properly dispose of waste is crucial for global sustainable development.
To reduce the sorting cost of waste disposal, Zhengzhou has managed to enforce garbage classification and started some pilot projects in several communities from December 1st, 2019. These projects were initially largely based on the city government’s purchase of garbage classification service from companies. Up to June 2019, Zhengzhou has purchased such service from 21 different companies. Take Henan Haokang Environmental Technology Company as an example. It provided every household a food waste bin and keep record of their disposal of food waste. Shi, an employee from the company, said that “Credits are earned every time they correctly classify the food waste, and more credit can be earned by continuous classification. Residents can exchange credits for daily necessities and the opportunity for a raffle.” Many companies in Zhengzhou used similar strategies that link garbage classification with rewards to encourage residents’ participation.
The strategies of garbage classification companies were proven to be effective in promoting garbage classification within the community. In the thesis by Wei Wei from Zhengzhou University, she analyzes the reason behind the necessity of government purchase of garbage classification service. She states that “in order to complete the task and improve their political achievement, some local government often blindly and repeatedly invest on facilities construction regardless of the cost in a short period of time, wasting a lot of labor and capital resource,” and that “as time pass and the heat of the policy fade, these investments do not have follow-up and failed to proceed.” Therefore, she believes that government needs to cooperate with the market and non-government organizations, including the purchase of garbage classification services from companies.
However, it does not mean that such government purchase is successful in all aspects. Wei Wei also states that although investment is high, the government has not provided enough supervision, resulting in a low utilization rate of equipment. Moreover, although the garbage classification service includes promoting related knowledge and consciousness to residents, the proportion of residents who participate in garbage classification is remarkably lower than the proportion of residents who know how to classify their garbage. Most importantly, she points out the low profit gained by these garbage classification companies, which resulted in the lack of initiative during their work.
Indeed, in an article from Henan Business Daily, the reporter Wen Cui interviewed several employees from the garbage classification service companies and reach a conclusion that most of these companies are making little profit or even experiencing loss. Mr. Zhou, the person in charge of the Henan Haokang Environmental Technology Company, said during the interview that “As long as we are not experiencing a loss, making profit is difficult.” He also states that “ If we only take the cost of labor into account, the company is making a little profit, but once the cost of purchasing garbage classification equipment in the early stage is counted, it is hard to make profit.” Ms. Ma from Zhengzhou Aolande Environmental Technology Company points out similar problems happened to her company that “the contract says that they can sell the equipment they bought at a depreciated price to the following company or to the government, but there is no follow-up now.”This means that the equipments were neither efficiently used by the original company or sold to others after the contract expired. Therefore, relying solely on government subsidies cannot help these firms to make profit and continue operating in the long run.
The low profit is important, because it accounted for the reason of the government’s decision to stop purchasing the service after the contract expired at the end of 2020. In the same article, Benbao Huo from the Hanghai West Road Office said that if the government stops subsidizing garbage classification, they will not be able to get garbage classification service. Therefore, they would rather make the community property management companies take over these responsibilities from now. Zhanshi Zheng from the Zhengzhou Garbage Classification Office believes that the property management companies are the ones who have close contact with residents, so it would be more effective for them to communicate with residents regarding the garbage classification problem.
However, it seemed that some property management failed to take over the responsibility as the government expected. Some residents stopped doing garbage classification after the garbage classification companies stopped supervising, making the progress back to what it was like before 2019. I believe that this failure can be explained by the the poor service of property management companies in Zhengzhou. According to the data from the Zhengzhou Housing Authority in 2014, 80% of the property management companies in Zhengzhou do not have enough qualifications. Most of them are constituted of several security guards and cleaners and are lack management employees. As a resident in Zhengzhou, I can feel how poor the service can be when the staff from the property management companies did not answer phone calls from owners and took a long time to solve the problem during several power cuts. Some property owners refuse to pay property fees for the poor service they provide. However, the low property fee has only made their service poorer. This situation is common in many communities in Zhengzhou. How should we expect them to regulate garbage classification when they could not even undertake the basic duty as a property management company. To be clarified, I have nothing against property management companies taking over the responsibilities. Instead, I consider it as a good long term solution if the government can regulate and supervise these property management companies. However, for now, the government should decide whether to buy the garbage classification service and what kind of service should they buy based on different types of communities.
No matter which method the government choose, the government and companies should find ways to make the recycling industry profitable, not just for the service in communities, but also for sustainability of garbage classification in the long run. Since China is currently at the initial stage of implementing garbage classification, we should always learn from the world.
For the recycling industry, making profit is not easy. Ron Gonen, the co-founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partner, a New York based investment firm, says that “when the there is a lack of a market for a specific commodity, even while all the other commodity types maintain strong markets, the economics of the recycling company can be threatened.” He also points out that “the way many municipal recycling contracts have traditionally been structured” accounts for the reason why recycling companies are facing a potential crisis. The contract allows the municipality to drop off recyclable at no cost and share the revenue. Ron Gonen proposes two possible option to deal with the recycled commodities that lacks an end-market, such as glasses. One option is that the municipality covers the cost, which means that the burden will fall on taxpayers. Another option is that the glass industry covers the cost, either by developing “robust markets for recycled glass that pay above processing costs” or reimbursing “the municipality and the recycling company for the cost of processing glass”. The later option is certainly more effective in generating revenue for both the municipality. At the same time, it also encourages the glass industry to make use of recycled glass and discourage the purchase of products that lack an end-market. Gonen at the end of his article proposes his new definition of “recyclable” that “it also should mean that the market value of that commodity pays more than the cost to process it at the recycling facility.”
Therefore, it is crucial for us to consider not only how to cover the cost or increasing revenue, but also how to reduce the cost of recycling. This brings us back to the local problem in Zhengzhou. One reason why those companies is that they have to bear the labor cost and reward cost of encouraging residents to participate in garbage classification. According to the reporter from Henan Business Daily, all of the renewable resources produced by Henan Baichuan Environmental Technology Company were returned to the residents in the ways of credit and reward for doing garbage classification. This means that companies like Baichuan are not able to self produce the “blood” for them to survive. Therefore, we need to figure out the way to reduce the cost of encouraging garbage classification.
Education in elementary schools is one of the ways that has been tried by the local government in Zhengzhou. The education program was conducted in the way of themed activities that require students to make a poster of garbage classification and have a class meeting on a presentation of garbage classification. However, it is easy for these activities to be formalistic. The reason why I have such belief comes from my experience during my elementary and junior high school. Students are usually burdened with heavy homework and do not have time to truly learn from these activities. The poster can be made by randomly drawing some related pictures and copying sentences from Baidu Encyclopedia. I also had teachers who leave the rest of the time for students to work on their homework after quickly going through the slides and taking photos for the evidence of the presentation during the class meeting. I am not denying all of effect brought by these themed activities, but there are certainly better ways. Take Sapporo, a city in Japan, as an example. It had programs to teach elementary and junior high school students to make compost out of food waste and grow crops using the compost. I couldn’t think of a better way to teach student than letting themselves to work in the field, using the waste they collected to generate something useful.
The participation of non government organizations or non profit organizations can also help to encourage residents’ participation. In Zhengzhou, there is non profit organization called Green Henan working in a community in Jinshui District to guide the residents to recycle and reuse waste, including making compost out of leaves and food waste and making soap out of wasted oil. However, they failed to further expand to other communities in Zhengzhou. Eco-Cycle, one of the non-profit Zero Waste organizations found in the Boulder County, Colorado, may provide some insight in regarding to this problem. Eco-Cycle is now one of the oldest and largest non-profit recycler and Zero Waste Organization in the U.S. that aims to build Zero Waste Communities. This organization provides practical solution of recycling, including the information about how to compost and the ways to get the facilities for recycling. More importantly, it also get engaged with communities by holding events. It provides “Zero Waste Event service that turns any black tie event into an elegant green tie event.” In 2020, Eco-Cycle helped to plan several events including the Silver Creek HS Chinese New Year, Boulder International Film Festival, and etc. Such events not only promote Zero Waste by planning Zero Waste event, but also connect Eco-Cycle with local people and encouraged their participation.
Conclusion & Implication
