Xi praises volunteers, urges public effort in trash sorting

President Xi Jinping has called for promoting trash sorting as a new trend of low-carbon life amid the nation’s efforts to improve people’s living environment and advance ecological conservation.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remark on Sunday in a letter of reply to volunteers who are engaged in trash sorting in a residential community in Shanghai’s Hongkou district.

He visited the community during an inspection tour in Shanghai in November 2018, when he chatted with the volunteers and said that “waste handling requires everyone’s participation”.

In July 2019, Shanghai became China’s first city to make sorting household waste compulsory. A number of other cities have followed in Shanghai’s footsteps in the following years, introducing mandatory household and workplace trash sorting.

Around 300 cities have carried out trash sorting work, with an average coverage rate of 82.5 percent in residential communities.

Xi has paid much attention to trash sorting and recycling and has made multiple instructions on the issue.

Recently, some volunteer representatives from the community wrote to Xi, reporting to him the achievement they have made in trash sorting and expressing their determination to make greater contributions to promoting waste sorting and disposal.

In his reply letter, Xi said that he was deeply impressed by the volunteers’ enthusiasm for public welfare and their passion for serving the people.

Xi said he was gratified to learn that after recent years of promotion, the community has made new progress in trash sorting, while its residents’ civility has been enhanced and its environment has become more beautiful.

Noting that trash sorting and recycling is a systematic project that requires concerted, long-term efforts from all parties, he called for precise measures and the active participation of both urban and rural residents.

Xi expressed his hope that those volunteers could continue to play their unique role in grassroots governance, encourage more residents to develop the habit of sorting trash, and contribute to promoting the construction of an ecological civilization and improving the level of civilization among the whole society.

Hua Lei, one of the trash sorting volunteers, said that over the past five years, the practice of trash sorting has become a proactive and even subconscious behavior among local residents.

“Many young people have played a role in raising public awareness and promoting education in the first years. For example, they created short plays to tell the elderly residents in vivid ways how to do trash sorting. Also, after learning related knowledge at school, many students spread the information to their parents and families,” she said.

Zhou Wenting in Shanghai contributed to this story.