Environment preservation is a topic of growing concern which calls for proper trash disposal systems. More and more people around the globe are leaning towards recycling. With a population of over 1.43 billion people, China is the world’s second-largest producer of trash. Therefore, the Chinese Government has made proper trash assortment and disposal mandatory for the residents of China.
Shanghai, the city with the second largest population within China, has introduced an initiative for the proper assortment and recycling of trash within the city. This has motivated many tech giants to investment in the development of applications that incorporates Artificial intelligence to assist the Chinese residents. The trash is meant to be sorted into four main categories – biodegradable waste, toxic waste, dry and recyclable waste. Failure to dispose trash according to their respective categories may result in bulky fines and decreased social credit scores.
The apps introduced to ease the hassle of Chinese residents have been a massive success. Alipay, an online payment platform of the Alibaba Group, has helped over three million residents in the assortment of since its test phase. In this app, users are required to scan the items they want to dispose upon which the app helps them learn the category the trash belongs to.
Tencent, the producer of the popular app WeChat, has also introduced an application whereby people can sort and dispose waste based on keywords. Many Chinese games companies have taken an interest in the recycling trend as well. They have developed virtual reality games that involve trash-sorting. People can wear VR goggles where they can see different types of waste alongside different types of recycling bins. The waste is meant to be sorted according to the appropriate categories and thrown in the right bins.
The Chinese government is taking waste management very seriously and has made significant investment in managing it. Waste bins with facial recognition systems have been placed around the city of Beijing. This has been done for the identification of the waste disposers. People who dispose trash and waste appropriately are presented with the opportunity of receiving higher social credit scores. China has been majorly inspired by Japan because of their well-adjusted trash and waste disposal system. Japan has very strict policies for the proper disposal of waste and failure to do may result in the residents facing neighborhood eviction threats.
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