Is it still necessary to classify household waste when there is a rumor circulating online that 'garbage is not enough to burn'?
2026-08-04
Garbage is a misplaced resource, and garbage classification is a crucial and trivial matter. In recent years, China's household waste classification system has gradually improved, the garbage classification system has been initially established, and the public's awareness of garbage classification has significantly increased. But there are also many people who have reported that the garbage classification in some places is not done well enough. Garbage sorting facilities are virtually non-existent in some old residential areas.
At the same time, discussions on social media such as "garbage is not enough to burn" and "garbage classification is unnecessary" have attracted widespread attention. Some netizens have noticed that some old landfills in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Liulin, Shanxi and other places have been excavated and reclaimed, and multiple giant "garbage mountains" have disappeared; There are also some places where waste incineration power plants have surplus production capacity, and even the phenomenon of incineration enterprises competing for garbage across regions has emerged.
Why are some garbage incineration plants "not eating enough"? If the incineration capacity of garbage really increases significantly, is it still necessary to reclassify the daily household waste generated by people?
In the Left Bank Community of Jinghu District, Wuhu City, Anhui Province, every morning and evening, residents will carry uniformly distributed green buckets and skillfully place the full buckets of kitchen waste at the storage point, then replace them with a clean empty bucket. The nearby supervisor will register the points synchronously.
At present, Wuhu City has launched a special pilot program for small green bins for kitchen waste in 28 residential areas and 1008 households. Mobilization has been carried out through publicity boards, door-to-door lectures, and other methods. The positive incentive mechanism of "small green bin placement+point exchange" has been adopted to effectively mobilize residents' participation and enthusiasm.
The reporter noticed during the interview that in recent years, with the vigorous promotion of garbage classification work in various regions, the awareness of urban residents' garbage classification has significantly increased. In many communities with standardized management, garbage classification has been integrated into the daily lives of many citizens. But there are also some residential areas, especially old ones, where the mixing of dry and wet garbage is still quite common.
Mr. Cui, a resident of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, said that in his community, even though the owners consciously classified the garbage when disposing of it, they did not see any sorting during garbage transportation, but instead mixed it together and pulled it away.
Mr. Chen, a resident of Shanghai, also told reporters that he often sees some residents in the community "casually throw their household garbage by the garbage bin, unwilling to even sort and put it in the garbage bin".
Professor Xu Lin from the School of Public Administration at Zhejiang University said that many places have not formed a closed-loop chain from front-end residents' classification and disposal to back-end garbage disposal, which has led to many residents being classified into four types of garbage, but only receiving one garbage truck that loads all the garbage together and transports it to one place for incineration. When residents see this situation, their enthusiasm is greatly affected.
Xu Lin also stated that the shortcomings in garbage management in some regions of China are mainly concentrated in the full chain connection:
Some front-end facilities do not match residents' living habits and different application scenarios sufficiently;
Some recycling and packaging stations still rely mainly on manual sorting, simple packaging, and transportation, which have shortcomings in fine sorting and digital management, and are difficult to support a modern recycling system with unified standards, stable operation, and full traceability.
Xu Lin believes that it is necessary to promote the formation of a closed-loop system as soon as possible, but this formation process cannot rely solely on the government's environmental sanitation department, and more enterprises should be involved.
Professor Ma Liang from the School of Government Management at Peking University stated that the systematic construction of waste management in many cities still needs further improvement. Garbage classification is only the first step, and how to carry out subsequent cleaning, incineration, recycling, and other issues involves many departments, and the related chain is also relatively long. Many cities still need to consider how to promote cross departmental collaboration and establish a systematic supervision of the entire chain.
Not long ago, the topic of "garbage is not enough to burn, household waste no longer needs to be sorted" sparked widespread discussion online. Officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development stated in a media interview that due to uneven economic development and uneven population density distribution, there is a regional imbalance in the incineration capacity of household waste, especially in western and remote areas where the incineration capacity of counties is insufficient. There are problems such as an incomplete garbage collection, storage, and transportation system and a low rate of household waste collection.
Regarding this issue, Professor Ma Liang believes that some waste incineration plants cannot be attributed to waste classification for not being able to eat enough. At present, different departments are responsible for regulating garbage classification and incineration, involving housing and construction, ecological environment protection, transportation and other departments. There may not be a consensus among departments on the focus of policies, nor have they promoted policy coordination, resulting in conflicts between garbage incineration and garbage classification in some areas.
Xu Lin also stated that incineration mainly solves the problems of reducing, harmless, and energy-efficient residual waste that is difficult to continue using, while classification separates valuable resources such as waste paper, plastics, metals, glass, textiles, etc. and sends them back to the production system. The two are interrelated and complementary, rather than interchangeable.
Several industry experts have stated that the treatment of household waste should balance the three goals of reduction, resource utilization, and harmlessness. The fundamental purpose of front-end garbage classification is to promote waste reduction, and to provide more specialized treatment or utilization of garbage with different attributes through classification and transportation channels, thereby reducing the total amount of garbage that needs to be incinerated or landfilled and saving social costs.
Xu Lin suggested that in the process of promoting garbage classification work in various regions, the classification of garbage types should be simplified. At the same time, the system construction of garbage management from source classification to back-end disposal should be improved, with unified identification, facility coding, vehicle specifications, data supervision, and low value recycling responsibilities, so that residents can identify, the government can supervise, and the recycling flow can be traced.
The reporter noticed that several cities are actively promoting the improvement of the quality and efficiency of the recyclable material system. Ma Liang stated that the whole society needs to jointly build a modern solid waste management system that is full chain, closed-loop, and high-value. Even waste incineration plants with unreasonable early planning should consider integration and exit, forming a pattern of compatible interests. Only in this way can the entire waste management system form a more complete chain. (Outlook New Era)
Edit:Luoyu Responsible editor:Wang Xiaojing
Source:CCTV News Client
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