China’s capital sees an increased number of communities using smart waste disposal systems, which rewards credits to residents for garbage classification.

Around 9 a.m. in the morning, Guo Hongxiu, a 63-year-old woman living in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, arrived at her community’s garbage recycling station, a green cabin, as usual and handed over classified garbage. With a bag of fruit peels, vegetable leaves and several folded cartons; Guo had four points added to her credit account. She can exchange those credits for household supplies or community services.

“Once you form a habit of waste sorting, it becomes natural to you,” said Guo. According to her, rules of garbage classification are not difficult to learn, as the community has given every household a guidance manual.

In addition to three green cabins in Guo’s community, there are garbage collection trucks driving through residential buildings, twice a day, for the convenience of the residents.

At the system’s control center in Guo’s community, a network of over 650 red dots of rubbish bins and moving green dots of waste disposal trucks are shown on a screen.

“Disposal trucks will be dispatched as soon as rubbish bins are full as theysend out an automatic alarm,” said Li Zhen, head of the Beijing Capital Intelligence Environmental Sanitation Development company that produced the system.

The system has achieved garbage metering and monitoring throughout the whole course of garbage transfer. It will be further upgraded to sort out medical waste and hazardous waste in the future.

Local officials said a lack of awareness remainsthe biggest problem impeding China’s promotion of waste classification. This smart system, planned to be deployedin 22 communities in Chaoyang district in 2017, fuels residents’ will for participation with an injection of modern technology.

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