If youare in Shanghai and want to throw away a cup of milk tea, be careful! You needto follow these steps: first, pour out any leftover into a wet waste bin;second, put the paper cover into a recyclable waste bin; third, throw thesingle-use cup into a dry waste bin.
Sounddifficult and annoying? You'll have to get used to it. From July 1st, 2019 on,people in Shanghai are required to separate their rubbish according to strictrules.
Whyshould we separate our rubbish? The answer lies in the increasing amount ofwaste we are producing. Chinese cities produce over 200 million tons of wasteeach year, according to China Economic Net. Most of this waste is buried (掩埋) in landfills, which may pollute the water and soil.
Moreover, we are running out of space for new landfills.
In fact,more than half of our waste can be recycled. Recyclable rubbish can be madeinto new materials. For example, wet rubbish can be used to make gas, heat andmany other kinds of useful things. But in order to recycle rubbish efficiently(高效地) , we need to separate our rubbish.
Can'tgarbage-processing companies (垃圾处理公司) do the separating job?They can. But that requires a lot of work and costs lots of money. Things willbecome much easier if each of us can separate our own rubbish. Besides, theannoying task of separating might encourage people to produce less waste. Doyou still want to buy that milk tea?
