More and more people get to know the concept of garbage classification today but only a few know there are types other than the recyclables and the non-recyclables, and even fewer of them will classify their daily wastes. This is, however, not the case at Tianyu residential community in Suzhou Industrial Park, where 45% residents are foreigners from 26 countries including Japan, Korea, Europe, and US.

Turning the wastes into useful teaching aids

"Some of the residents from Japan and Taiwan," explained a worker at community committee, "have formed the habit of classifying their daily garbage and told us that two bins for the recyclables and the non-recyclables were far from enough."

Teaching kids how to classify the wastes

So the committee introduces ten categories for household wastes, including plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, paper, battery, clothing, 3C, metals, and others.

At a local flea market 

The community committee is in charge of collecting and selling the recyclable wastes and then putting the money into neighborhood programs and activities to promote public awareness on environment issues, such as giving lectures, teaching kids to classify daily wastes, organizing tour to waste landfill, and opening 24/7 flea market encouraging residents to exchange the used things.