Rewards may encourage garbage sorting

AN INTELLIGENT HOUSEHOLD refuse collecting and sorting machine was launched in a residential community in Shanghai on Monday. ThePaper.cn comments:

Residents receive cash from the machine for the plastic products, cartons, paper, clothes and glass bottles they throw into it. The price is 0.8 yuan ($0.12) for per kilogram of plastics or paper. This is a meaningful way to stimulate people’s enthusiasm for garbage sorting.

The government has tried to introduce waste sorting for years. But the rumbling of thunder has not produced rain. It is a social consensus that this is a move beneficial to all parties. But few people take the initiative to actually sort their garbage, especially after seeing that the refuse trucks mix all the household refuse together while loading it.

Statistics show that more than 60 percent of Chinese cities produce more waste than they can dispose of. As a result they are actually besieged by their own garbage.

Sorting and recycling waste, as is done in 限童令(xiàn tóng lìng)

The National Radio and Television Administration recently released a draft regulation on programs related to minors to solicit public opinions. In order to better protect children from harmful influences, the document proposes programs for kids should not be too commercialized or adult like.

Minors are immature and lack the ability to some developed countries, represents a way out for these cities.

Apart from such machines, which can only serve as an incentive, the government, social organizations and the media must work together to raise the public’s awareness of the importance and urgency of garbage sorting.

The people should be informed that their waste is just misplaced resources that contain tremendous material and environmental value if they are properly recycled.

The annual amount of waste Taipei produced has dwindled by almost two-thirds in 10 years from 2000 to 2009 after it carried out a strict garbage sorting policy, which started step by step from the early 1990s.

Compared with fines, which is more useful after the model has matured, giving a small reward is a useful incentive to encourage people to sort their waste.

Restrictions on programs for minors

distinguish right from wrong, so they are easily misled and even blindly imitate and pursue what they see in programs on television and other media.

These measures not only reflect the continuous deepening of the regulators’ understanding of the influence of TV programs on minors, but also reflect the development of the times, the progress of the media, and the impact of the cultural environment on minors.

It is expected the new regulation will create a good entertainment environment for the healthy development of the minors through regulating the production and broadcast of programs related to children.

In addition, the administration should improve the review, inspection and complaint mechanisms for children’s programs, in order to actively and dynamically regulate and supervise the production and broadcast of programs for minors.