If you are in Shanghai and want to throw away a cup of milk tea, be careful. You need to follow these steps: first, pour out any milk tea left into a wet waste bin; second, put the paper wrapper (包装材料) into a recyclable waste bin; third, throw the single—use cup and straw (吸管) into a dry waste bin.
Sounds complex? You'll have to get used to it. From July 1 on, people in Shanghai are required toseparate(使分离)theirgarbage(垃圾)accordingtostrict rules. Manyother
cities in China are planning to create similar garbage —separating rules.
Why should we separate our garbage? The answer lies in the increasing of waste we are producing. Chinese cities produce over 200 million tons of waste each year, according to Chinese Economic. Most of this waste is buried (填埋), which may pollute water and soil! In addition, we are running out of space.
In fact, more than half of our waste can be recycled. Recyclable garbage can be made into new materials, while wet garbage can be used to make gas, heat and fertilizer (肥料). So in order to recycle better, we need to separate our garbage.
Can't garbage—processing companies do the separating job for us? They can. But that requires a lot of work and costs lots of money. Things will become much easier if each of us can separate our own garbage. Besides, the hard task of separating might encourage people to produce less waste. Do you still want to buy that milk tea?