1 . Garbage sorting (分类) has become a hot topic around China, especially after Shanghai began carrying out a regulation (规章) on July 1.

Beijing has been expected to do the same. At present the regulation gives garbage sorting responsibilities to government departments, property management groups and other organizations. It also gives rules for companies, explaining how they’re responsible for waste collection, transportation and treatment. Citizens are free of responsibilities for the moment.

The long-awaited revision will soon change the situation. “Taking out the trash without sorting it properly will be illegal,” said Sun Xinjun, director of the Beijing Commission of Urban Management. In Shanghai, violators (违背者) are now fined up to 200 yuan for trash-sorting violations. “The maximum fine in Beijing will not be less than that,” he said.

The Beijing city government first promoted garbage sorting in 2009. Authorities have since called on citizens to sort their household waste into four types—recyclable waste, kitchen trash, dangerous waste and others , and leave it in a colored dustbin or trash can. Blue-colored dustbins are for recyclable items, green for kitchen trash, red for dangerous materials and grey for other waste.

To promote the awareness of garbage sorting and expand the base of participants, authorities have employed workers to help citizens. With intelligent devices, those who throw in recyclable waste at given places will be rewarded with bonus points, which can be used to buy daily goods. At some communities, there are no color-coded dustbins. Instead, a scheduled garbage collection service is offered to help improve the environment. In other communities, workers offer a door-to-door service to collect recyclable or kitchen waste.

Beijing Environmental Sanitation Engineering Group has been promoting new garbage sorting facilities such as recycling cabinets and smart kitchen waste trash cans since 2016, Xinhua News Agency reported.

2 . If you live in Shanghai, you might have to take a "lesson" in sorting garbage, as the city recently introduced new garbage-sorting regulations. It's now required that people should sort garbage into four categories, namely recyclable, harmful, dry and wet waste. However, if people fail to sort their garbage properly, they can be fined up to 200 yuan. More cities are introducing similar regulations, following the practice in Shanghai. By the end of 2020, garbage-sorting systems will have been built in 46 major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, reported People's Daily.

According to a study by the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, over 90 percent of the public believe that garbage sorting is important for the protection of the environment. However, garbage sorting is still a big problem in China. Only 30 percent of participants said they think they are adequately sorting their trash, the study noted.

According to Xinhua News Agency, it's partly because many people lack the willingness to sort their own waste, In the past. Some previous garbage regulations didn't give clear fines for people who failed to sort garbage. "It's a must to have a legal guarantee to promote garbage sorting." Liu Jianguo, a professor from Tsinghua University, told China Daily. He also added "the importance of the new regulations in Shanghai is to change the past voluntary action into compulsory action for everyone.

Aside from China, many other foreign countries have also introduced garbage-sorting regulations. In Japan, waste sorting has become a basic survival skill, reported Xinhua. There is a fixed time for disposal of each kind of garbage and littering can result in high fines and even jail time. In Germany too, people are asked to sort waste into specific categories, reported HuffPost. For example, in Berlin, people have yellow bins for plastic and metals and blue bins for paper and cardboard.

Every day people throw away a lot of household garbage – paper, cans, kitchen waste, used batteries and glass     1    sorting it. There are many problems     2    (cause) by unsorted garbage. On one hand, it’s     3    great waste of resources. On the other hand, the disposal of unsorted garbage can cause serious environmental pollution,     4    does harm to people’s health. Now our government has realized the importance of garbage sorting. So far many activities     5    (hold) to teach people how to sort garbage     6    (proper).

People in cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, are required to sort garbage into four categories— kitchen waste,     7    (danger) waste, recyclable waste and other waste. Also, they can get certain points for sorting their garbage. When they accumulate enough points, they can go to the community     8    (exchange) them for some gifts of daily use. However, still a lot of people in China lack the     9    (aware) of garbage sorting. Changing people’s mindsets and habits will take a long time. But once one person     10    (develop) the habit of garbage sorting, more may be influenced to do the same.

8 . Before you throw your trash into the nearest can, think for a moment. Not all your garbage can be dumped into one trashcan. It needs to be sorted out with different things going into different bins. Waste classification, a practice that has long been normal in developed countries like Japan, is the new challenge for many Chinese urban residents. However, though initially you might need to rack your brains to figure out which trash goes into which can, in the long run, the result is well worth the effort.

Landfills, sites where waste is buried and covered over with soil, are a major method of disposing of residential waste in China. However, considering the environmental disaster associated with burying waste, there is a pressing need to reduce the amount of waste that goes into a landfill. Classification, sorting waste into different categories such as harmful waste, recyclables and kitchen waste, is a key solution.

Currently, 46 cities across China, are carrying out a program that aims to put in place a classification-based garbage disposal system by the end of 2020. It is hoped that this will reduce the quantity of waste that ends up in landfills by a large degree. Shanghai came into the media focus in early July after it carried out compulsory garbage sorting rules that those who fail to dispose of garbage properly should be fined. Beijing is reviewing its regulations to follow in Shanghai’s footsteps. The new rules may cause short-term inconvenience but they are meant to help residents follow the concept of garbage classification for the common good.

As the programs show, residents can gradually develop this habit with their growing consciousness and the help of advanced technology. In future, this practice should be adopted across China, in urban cities and rural areas alike. With public involvement, China’s garbage sorting program will contribute not only to the nation’s sustainable (可持续的) development but also to making the planet a better place to live in.

9 . A new law came into use in Shanghai on Monday, requiring every individual, families and companies to sort（分类）their trash into different trash cans. Locals are now required to separate trash into four kinds: food waste, residual waste, harmful waste and recyclable waste. According to the new law, a 200-yuan fine can be given to individuals or families who do not follow it.    1    

On the first day of practice of the rules, it was found that 38. 1 percent of hotels and 33.2 percent of companies didn't meet the requirements.    2    . The success in residential（居民的）neighborhoods was a result of early practice in pilot（试点的）neighborhoods around the city, which had caused mixed feelings among the public since June.

    3    Some people praised Shanghai for being a role model and taking active steps to solve the trash problem in big cities, while others complained about the inconvenience the rule has brought to their daily lives, and made jokes about sorting their garbage.

The final goal of the trash sorting program is to reduce waste and increase recycling. Shanghai's24 million residents produce 56,000 tons of trash every day.    4    Actually, Shanghai is not fighting alone in the battle against trash disposal,as trash sorting has been popular nationwide.    5    Those cities will set up a basic system to classify and dispose of their house old garbage by 2020, and by 2050, cities at the prefecture level（地级）and above should have the system in place.

ON Tuesday, Bejing passed a regulation on daily disposable (一次性的)garbage,    1    will come into effect on May 1, 2021. According to the regulation, fast delivery companies, hotels, and restaurants    2    (forbid)from using disposable plastic boxes and bags.

It is common for people to get their meals    3    (deliver)in plastic boxes, and put everything they buy from the supermarket in plastic bags. According to a Xinhua report, the amount of garbage a garbage processing center has to deal with every day    4    (grow)by over 2,000 tons since last year, the main reason for that    5    (be)the rapid increase in fast food deliveries.

    6    , the regulation might need more corresponding(相关的)measures in order to be effective. According to its current version, the fast delivery companies, restaurants, and hotels might face a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 yuan if they break the regulation. But    7    if their customers require them to use plastic containers and bags?

In order to control the use of plastics, it is necessary to change people's habits, too. For example, a bonus (奖励)system could    8    (introduce)to reward those who avoid using disposable plastics for one month or more.

With these new measures    9    (combine)with the ban, the use of disposable plastic containers and bags will    10    (hope)be controlled.