Sort waste to ease garbage collectors' burden

"Beijing produces 17,400 tons of garbage every day, but the local garbage processing plants can process only 10,400 tons of them. Unless the gap is covered, the metropolis would be surrounded by garbage four years later." A media outlet made this prediction in 2014.

It has not come true, however.

Why? Because local garbage collectors, more than 100,000 of them, covered the gap - with their hands, literally. According to official data, garbage collectors can process 4 million tons of the 7 million tons of garbage Beijing produces every year, and thus can help recycle tens of thousands of tons of reusable materials.