According to the five-year urban data, why did garbage and GDP grow together?

Some people say that garbage classification 'drives Shanghai (real estate) people crazy'. In fact, with the introduction of policies in another 45 key cities, waste classification will be expanded from the 'Shanghai volume' to the 'national volume'.

I can't help asking, why do we start from these cities in the classification work from point to area? By the end of 2020, what will happen if the garbage classification and treatment system is not built? To answer these questions, we can find the answers from the national annual report on the prevention and control of environmental pollution by solid waste in large and medium-sized cities (hereinafter referred to as the 'annual report on prevention and control') issued by the Ministry of ecological environment.

From 2014 to 2018, the annual report on prevention and control has been published for five consecutive years, recording the situation of solid waste in more than 200 cities across the country from 2013 to 2017 (municipal solid waste is one of the four categories of solid waste). In the process of combing these data, we also noticed a phenomenon - the more developed the city is, the brighter it is, and the more garbage it has.

01

Landfill and incineration

Why are we in a hurry to classify garbage?

The annual report on prevention and control shows the process of increasing domestic waste production in large and medium-sized cities in China year by year.

Note: in the annual report on prevention and control, the number of large and medium-sized cities that publish the prevention and control information of solid waste pollution to the society every year is not completely the same. 263 in 2013; 244 in 2014; 246 in 2015; 214 in 2016; 202 in 2017. Cartography: urban evolution

As far as the country is concerned, there is no complete statistical data on how much garbage is produced on 9.6 million square kilometers of land. However, according to the annual report on prevention and control, in five years, the number of cities publishing data has decreased, but the published waste output has increased by 25%.

'each person produces about 1kg of domestic waste every day, and a city produces 10000 tons of waste every day'. When the waste is thrown into the garbage can, we take it for granted that all the waste has been effectively treated, and we think that it has nothing to do with these wastes from now on.

However, the harsh reality tells everyone that this is not the case.

Landfill and incineration are the mainstream methods of waste disposal all over the world.

On the edge of every city, there is a place called 'landfill', or there are many. Since 2008, photographer Wang jiuliang has spent three years walking around the fifth and sixth ring roads of Beijing (real estate), locking in more than 400 large and small landfills. These dense dots surround Beijing.

'Garbage besieged cities' is not a sensational concept, nor is it a real problem that Beijing is facing. According to a previous survey by the Ministry of housing and urban rural development, more than two-thirds of China's more than 600 cities are surrounded by garbage, and the stock of urban domestic waste has exceeded 8 billion tons.

Because of its low cost and large amount of domestic waste, landfill treatment is widely used in China.

However, whether it is Guangzhou (real estate) Xingfeng landfill with a daily treatment capacity of about 9000 tons of domestic waste, or Xi'an (real estate) jiangcungou domestic waste landfill with a daily treatment capacity of 1 ton, it will reach the saturation state of filling and closing this year and next. Also from the Ministry of housing and urban rural development: a quarter of cities have no suitable place to stack garbage.

Incineration is considered to be a dawn to solve the 'garbage siege'. 'Clean incineration that fully meets the emission standards is the most thorough in terms of waste safety and reduction.' Xue Tao, executive director of E20 Research Institute, believes that 'waste incineration is the backbone to solve the waste siege'.

However, as far as local conditions are concerned, 'clean' is difficult to achieve generally. Garbage incineration, like other environmental protection fields in China, also has similar problems.

For example, leachate treatment in incineration plants accounts for a high proportion. Wet waste not only affects power generation efficiency, but also brings pressure to tail gas treatment; For example, garbage contains some metals, and incineration has high toxicity, resulting in secondary environmental hazards; For example, the wet garbage that should enter the ecological cycle of carbon is also burned by a fire. The land constantly supplies carbon products to mankind, but carbon cannot be recycled back to the soil, but becomes carbon dioxide in the air

Too much garbage, nowhere to bury, also erodes our living space; Garbage is too miscellaneous and harmful to burn, which does not conform to the concept of green recycling.

Opening up new landfills and building larger incinerators are not the ideas for cities to break through the garbage dilemma. In this context, garbage classification is imminent.

Going towards the goal of 'reduction, recycling and harmlessness', upgrading from the basic requirements of ensuring urban safety to a more ecological direction, burning or landfilling after source classification, resource recovery and waste reduction is the blueprint that the 'national waste classification campaign' across the country hopes to outline.

02

Shenzhen and Chongqing

Why does garbage grow with GDP?

As I said before, the more developed the city, the more beautiful it is, and the more garbage it has.

In the process of sorting out the annual report on prevention and control, we found that among the ten cities with the largest amount of urban domestic waste in China, the four first tier cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are among them, and the remaining places are mainly occupied by sub provincial cities.

From 2013 to 2017, Beijing and Shanghai have consistently ranked among the top two cities in terms of the amount of municipal solid waste generated. In the past five years, on the premise that the number of permanent residents in the two cities has not changed much, Beijing's GDP has increased by 43.59% and garbage production has increased by 34.26%; Shanghai's GDP increased by 39.49%, and its waste production increased by 22.21%.

Mapping of the top ten cities with domestic waste production in 2013-2017: urban evolution

Taking 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China as an observation model, Beijing's domestic waste output in 2017 exceeded that of 25 provincial administrative units - more specifically, if a large truck with a load of 5 tons is used to load the 9million tons of waste, two in a row, it can be discharged from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan to Harbin (real estate).

Furthermore, Chengshu carried out simple data processing, hoping to answer the reason for the larger garbage production in big cities.

Urban domestic waste production ÷ permanent population ÷ 365 days = waste per person per day, per capita GDP ÷ 365 days = GDP per person per day. Comparing these two data, it is found that the more GDP per person per day, the more domestic waste. Among them, Shenzhen (real estate) and Chongqing (real estate) are the most representative.

Taking 2013 as an example, every day, every Shenzhen person can produce 374 yuan of 'value', which is the highest value in the top ten cities, and can also produce 1.34 kg of garbage, which is also the highest value; Although each Chongqing person produces only 117 yuan of 'value', which is the lowest value, it also produces only 0.42 kg of garbage, which is also the lowest value. Whether it is 'value' or 'garbage', compared with Shenzhen, Chongqing only produces about 30% of the volume.

From the perspective of per capita creativity, the level of domestic waste production in cities is highly related to the level of economic and social development. The more developed cities are, the greater the pressure of urban waste will naturally be.

In this regard, Xue Tao analyzed that the superposition of two factors led to this phenomenon.

On the one hand, the more developed cities are, the more garbage will be produced. 'For example, the first tier cities with tight work pace not only have high consumption levels, but also rely more on fast food takeout. This is all mixed garbage. The change in the pace of social development has brought a lot of garbage increment.' Xue Tao said.

On the other hand, it is a waste recycling system that few people pay attention to. With the improvement of economic level, residents in developed cities are less involved in the waste recycling system composed of scavengers. In this way, the mixing of garbage polluted by wet garbage affects the cleaning of recyclables; With the increase of treatment volume, some low-value recyclables have also been abandoned and directly entered the terminal waste treatment link. Xue Tao explained, 'the reduction of recycling factors in garbage also brings about the increment of garbage.'

Cities are more and more developed, more and more garbage, and classification is more and more urgent.

Combing the information published at present, we find that the classification standards of each city are different.

Shanghai: dry garbage, wet garbage, hazardous garbage, recyclables

Beijing: kitchen waste, hazardous waste, other waste, recyclables

Shenzhen: glassy gold plastic paper, other garbage, harmful garbage, waste furniture, waste fabrics, annual flowers, new year oranges, fruit and vegetable garbage, greening garbage, kitchen garbage

Chengdu: recyclables, kitchen waste, hazardous waste, other waste

However, no matter how the standard changes, there are separate garbage cans for kitchen waste / kitchen waste / wet waste.

In Xue Tao's view, dry and wet classification from the delivery end can prevent wet waste from polluting dry waste and increase the circulation index of dry waste; Second, the additional treatment of wet waste can produce additional ecological value - the recycling of biogas residue, and realize the ecological cycle that part of carbon belongs to the land.

Promoting the separation of dry and wet garbage is one of the important values of this wave of urban garbage classification. After all, recyclable waste has been recycled, harmful and harmless treatment has been carried out, wet waste has entered the ecological cycle, and the remaining dry waste, whether incinerated or landfilled, has brought much less pressure to the city.

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