District sets up stations to transform garbage

JIADING District has set up 23 biochemical garbage treatment stations that can transform wet garbage such as kitchen waste, leftovers, vegetables and fruits into odorless waste water.

At Yongxiang Jiayuan community in Nanxiang Town, a 40-square-meter biochemical garbage treatment station was installed. Dry and wet garbage was sorted out in front of a metal biochemical garbage treatment machine, which can process the community’s 1,000 kilograms of wet garbage. Before processing, solid waste such as metal scrap and plastics have to be picked out.

The working mechanism of the biochemical garbage treatment machine lies in the machine’s bacteria strain. Through a chemical reaction produced by mixing the garbage with the bacteria, wet garbage will be transformed into odorless waste water.

At the Yumin community, the biochemical garbage treatment station has to operate on refined garbage sorting, which poses even higher standards for the sorting. As a result, the community should set an example in encouraging residents to sort their garbage according to the refined sorting categories.

The new garbage treatment technology is yet to be promoted at a large scale even though the stations own a high reputation among residents. The first station was introduced in Jiading in 2013, and still only a few communities in the district are equipped with such stations.

More funds and space would be needed in the communities for large-scale application of the technology. A biochemical garbage treatment station requires a minimum space of 20 square meters and 200,000 yuan (US$30,900) for each machine, and an extra 1,000 yuan for the bacteria strain, according to officials.