Shanghai Waste Receptacles 2.0

The bin is nice, space-wise for the street...I really hope one day Shanghai could run the city recycling like Scandinavia countries. Now I even don't know how to deal with the bottles.

The new receptacles are indeed a lot nicer looking and tha fact that I see far more people actually using the receptacles instead of the streets to toss refuse etc. is a good sign. Shanghai has come a long way in the past few years and will likely make more strides in the right direction before 2010.

I just hope these new bins will not taken away like the older sets which they themselves were made of recycleable metals and thus people stole them, crushed them and recycled them for profit.

There are recycling centers that pay recyclers for their recyclables. The large centers are located in a few places in the city (most notably along the banks of teh SuZhou Creek, north of the downtown areas) so the individuals that one often sees collecting your recycleables, usually make their way (read: walk for kilometers...) up there to make a few yuan. And as for why these guys are out so early, have you not noticed that most of the city operates on a classic blue collar schedule with breakfast at 7, lunch and 12 and dinner at 6? Locals are up an at it early, many need to do their daily grocery shopping before work, others just have to get to work early, especially the blue collar class. Lucky for most of us, we carry on our lifes on a bit later schedule.

Has anyone actually seen a recycling van in Shanghai?

And can anyone tell me why, at 7 am in the morning, guys on bicycles are allowed to ring bells, or worse, use mega-phones, to announce that they want to recycle your old airconditioner or computer. My recylcing routine doesn't start until well past 8 am!

Although Shanghai's first generation robo-bins are still fairly new, I've noticed (while scavenging for a spare AAA in a pinch ;-)) that they are already bashed-up and rusting in many cases.

It seems that form (and, to be fair, they are soooo snazzy) has usurped function in the "design" process, as usual!

I saw a bemused scavenger tackle one of these last night. Once he figured it out he seemed quite happy that aluminium cans are easier to forage. Although less impressed with the impenetrable hole for hazardous goods.

Seriously though, this is a terrific step in the right direction. I just hope that it is accompanied by some public awareness campaigns. Not to mention stricter rules relating to littering and spitting. I have never seen a people so careless about their environment.

Which government agency actually does the recylcing in Shanghai? I've only ever seen bell ringing, malnourished men and woman undertaking recycling duties in this city, which brings me to my next question: what's the use of the lock on the side of each bin?

Oh, and a final question, does each bin come with a spitoon?