Haikou in S China's Hainan boosts resource recycling

Haikou city in south China's Hainan Province has taken multiple measures to treat domestic garbage, agricultural waste and construction waste, promoting resource recycling and the formation of green production and lifestyles.

The city has explored an "Internet Plus" recycling model for domestic garbage, encouraging residents to sort and recycle garbage through a rewards system.

At a smart garbage sorting and recycling station in Longhua district, Haikou, a resident surnamed Liu was weighing out a bag full of garbage.

A local resident recyles waste at a smart garbage sorting and recycling station in Longhua district, Haikou, south China's Hainan Province. (Haikou Daily/Yang He)

Occupying an area of about 7 square meters, the smart recycling station has three waste sorting bins for metals, plastic and paper boxes.

"The 'price' for newspapers, paper boxes, and cans is 1.4 yuan ($0.19), 0.9 yuan, and 8 yuan per kilogram, respectively," Liu said, adding that users receive money for putting sorted garbage into these bins. The money is credited to their account and can be cashed once it exceeds 20 yuan.

Smart recycling stations greatly boost citizens’ enthusiasm for garbage sorting and recycling by paying them, said Jiang Peiyong, an official with the garbage classification office of Haikou.

These smart recycling stations can be operated on a self-service basis and provide services such as online transactions and cash returns by leveraging the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies.

To date, Longhua district has built 23 smart recycling stations and two transfer stations, attracting 46,601 registered users, said Yang Xuecai, chairman of Hainan Liangxin Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., which operates the smart recycling stations.

Since January 2020, the district has collected 8,797 tonnes of recyclable materials from users of smart recycling stations and paid them 12.83 million yuan.

The garbage from smart recycling stations is then delivered to a sorting center, where the waste will be further processed. Kitchen waste is transferred to designated companies for treatment and producing biogas, while furniture and appliances are delivered to a furniture treatment site, where they are shredded and compressed before being transported along with the remaining household waste to the Haikou waste-to-energy plant.

To better recycle and utilize agricultural and forestry waste, Haikou has actively explored new models for resource utilization of such waste by focusing on developing efficient and science-based waste treatment technologies, and guiding farmers to comprehensively utilize straws through multiple channels and forms.

To increase farmers' enthusiasm for comprehensive utilization of agricultural and forestry waste, Hainan Shengyan Agricultural Investment Co. Ltd. has introduced a "straw for fertilizer" program, in which villagers can exchange two tonnes of straws for 150 kilograms of organic fertilizer. If an entire village collects and transports 30 tonnes of straws, it is rewarded with an additional one tonne of organic fertilizer.

"Currently, we work together with 14 villages in Jiazi township, Qiongshan district. From January to now, we have recycled over 6,000 tonnes of discarded straws, branches, and fallen leaves from villagers," said Zhong Xiaolong, head of the company.

In Sanmenpo township of Qiongshan district, straws have become the raw materials for power generation. The township has set up 151 temporary straw collection and storage sites, with a daily processing capacity of 150 tonnes and an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes.

Haikou encourages the involvement of nongovernmental capital in the construction and operation of crop straw collection and storage sites and supports various business entities such as village collectives, enterprises, cooperatives, and family farms in participating in the crop straw collection, storage, and transportation industry, according to an official with the Haikou bureau of agriculture and rural affairs.

So far, Haikou has introduced 11 companies engaged in comprehensive straw utilization and established 13 straw collection and storage sites.

In Xiuying district, Hainan Changrong Renewable Resources Co., Ltd. introduced automated production equipment to improve the processing efficiency of its construction waste disposal site in 2022 and established a waste disposal line for waste generated from building renovation last year.

At present, the company can process over 1 million tonnes of waste from building renovation and other construction waste, and over 100,000 tonnes of discarded furniture and garden waste annually, with the recycling rate of recyclable resources, construction waste, and garden waste reaching 80 percent, 100 percent, and over 90 percent respectively.