Rewards may encourage garbage sorting

AN INTELLIGENT HOUSEHOLD refuse collecting and sorting machine was launched in a residential community in Shanghai on Monday. ThePaper.cn comments:

Residents receive cash from the machine for the plastic products, cartons, paper, clothes and glass bottles they throw into it. The price is 0.8 yuan ($0.12) for per kilogram of plastics or paper. This is a meaningful way to stimulate people's enthusiasm for garbage sorting.

The government has tried to introduce waste sorting for years. But the rumbling of thunder has not produced rain. It is a social consensus that this is a move beneficial to all parties. But few people take the initiative to actually sort their garbage, especially after seeing that the refuse trucks mix all the household refuse together while loading it.