As we previously reported, Shanghai became the first Chinese city to legally enforce waste sorting last Monday. Reports from the last few days suggest that the authorities are enforcing the new regulations quite strictly.
On Sunday 新京报 (the Beijing News) reported that over the first six days of the new rules’ enforcement,17,800 law enforcement personnel carried out a total of 9,600 inspections, covering residential complexes, hospitals, hotels, shopping malls, and parks. A total of 3,456 organizations and 3,248 individuals received “education and dissuasion” for violating the regulations. 62% were guilty of failing to properly set up garbage-sorting bins, 36% of failing to correctly sort their rubbish, and 2% of collecting and transporting rubbish illegally. 190 fines were also handed out to individuals and organizations for violating the new regulations. Individual flouters can be fined from 50 to 150 yuan for a first offence and up to 200 yuan for repeated offences, while companies and organisations could face fines of up to 50,000 yuan.
Reports from today in the Chinese media reveal that in a particularly extreme case which occurred on the 4th of July, a 33-year old woman was detained for three days in the Shanghai district of Hongkou after attacking a volunteer. When the volunteer, a retired cleaner, asked her to correctly sort her garbage, the woman grabbed the volunteer by the neck and caused her light injuries.
