In our final months of living in Qingdao, we finally saw signs of the advent of recycling; it started with large, complex and very fancy recycling machines showing up in random places practically overnight. Smaller versions of these were found on Laoshan Mountain hiking trails as well. Trash bins are all marked with recycle or other waste signs and in the malls, the trash bins are separated into 3 sections, but it's still voluntary to recycle. However, based on the local perspective, recycling will come into the home in the next half year and eventually be mandatory as it is in the Tier 1 cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
This video is our experience with recycling in late spring 2020. There may be neighborhoods and communities in Qingdao that are already recycling, but it has yet to become a universal policy. We hope that will happen soon! Additionally, we hope to see, concurrently, a push towards the elimination of single use plastic. It's astonishing how much plastic waste is found in the grocery store alone.
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This video explores the current state of recycling in Qingdao, China. While the city has historically lacked a formal recycling infrastructure, the narrator observes a gradual shift toward sustainability through the introduction of smart recycling pods and educational efforts in schools, though residential adoption remains low due to convenience issues and a lack of enforcement.
Recycling is important.
Qingdao is a city of 11 million people and they do not recycle.
We were really surprised when we arrived in Qingdao
and there were no recycle bins and no instructions
to separate our trash but as the years have gone on we have seen
the movement towards encouraging people to
recycle their trash which is good news. So hopefully that will happen soon.
Here is the trash can for our apartment building
and as you can see people have piled the cardboard
outside of the metal can. The can itself has just
non-cardboard materials in it. If you would like to help the IE in the
neighborhood you take your cardboard and put it to
the side that way the IE doesn't have to fish through the rest of the trash
but if you don't do that he will go through all the bags
in the trash can. We've seen him doing that to pull out the trash bags.
The purpose of the IE going through the trash is that he gets
to earn a little extra money by recycling the cardboard and styrofoam
as well. Let's go take a look at the other garbage cans in the neighborhood.
Look who's here. Well don't say anything just listen up.
You might just learn something. Here's a big recycle
bin but it looks like the trash is mixed. We have styrofoam, we have plastic, we
have paper goods. There is a recycle sign
but I can tell you that we have never been
asked by the community to recycle anything. We do put the cardboard on the
side to make it easier for the IE and anything valuable that we think he
might be able to take and sell we do put on the side. Let's go look at
the new machine that's been brought into Qingdao. It arrived about a
month ago and I don't know if it's working yet.
This new trash receptacle is really cool but if you're any farther from
it than we are it would be prohibitive to bring all of your trash down here
especially if it's heavy to try and a separate it for this machine
and b to carry it down here would be you would really have to believe in
recycling to do that. This is the new recycle pod. It doesn't look like
anyone's in it now. Maybe it's closed on Sundays
but it looks like they're introducing the different colored
bins so people know what to put in them.
Maybe they turn it off when the office is not open. I don't know.
Kind of defeats the purpose but you scan your QR code here and
and follow the steps then all the way along here
to identify yourself and then what the garbage delivery is
and look at that they're even offering cash return.
This has really thought of everything. There's plastic ports,
slim tubes, cosmetics, used tubes, e-waste, expired medications
and then the receptacles for the paper and the fabric are
quite large to accommodate more of those things. That's the recycle bin
that has just been brought into Qingdao. As you've seen in our grocery store
episode everything is wrapped in plastic and
there's not a conservation of material use. I'm not sure why it
hasn't hit Qingdao yet but that's the update from Qingdao.
These are new adorable dolphin dust bins and as you can see
the one on the left says other waste and the right says
recyclable. I have no idea if people actually are following
the instructions on these but assuming they are
then at least the trash is being sorted on the beach.
And as you can see there are a lot of people out here and it's clear from
these garbage cans that people are not aware of
how to separate trash into recyclable and
other waste. Definitely need some education about recycling
in Qingdao. Ah it's open. Ah ni hao. Do you speak English?
This whole booth is dedicated to recycling
so it's like new recycling going on in Qingdao. Wish we could learn more xie xie.
The machine is now working. Automatical. Yeah. Oh it has a conveyor belt
in there. Stop. No. Then okay now it just
automaticals. And then what do you get money for?
Okay. Do you have money? Automatical. I think I get 0.01.
I don't know. Should I click this one? Oh that is to put again. Oh.
Seems like now recycling has become a very popular
thing but but is that happening in homes or just in the public places?
In your home? No. When do you think it will come to the home?
Good. Maybe next half year. Next half year. Yeah. China is too big.
Yeah. Too big. But I think maybe in Shanghai
or in Beijing maybe they they do this already.
Who taught your daughter to recycle and how to separate the trash?
Does she try and do that in your house? Yes. Yes.
It's interesting that it's a curriculum. It starts in the school with education
and then society picks it up and is also adopting. Do you have to
recycle in your house? No. In my neighborhood, in my community,
I don't have to recycle. Does the IE do it? Yeah. Yeah.
So they separate your trash? No. They don't have to.
We just want for some money you know. We collect some
cardboard. Got it. The cans. Yeah. The cans.
So Qingdao doesn't recycle. Why is that?
In my residential area, we built one concentrated machine.
Very modern. But it's not so convenient. Garbage
area in front of the building. Yeah. So you have to go
further to go to the garbage cycle area. Got it. Got it. So everyone is
supposed to carry all of their things down to that machine. Yeah.
To go a long distance. It's just very behind
because I asked Elena in Shanghai. She said, oh yeah, they get fined
if they don't follow the rules. Yeah. But here, they don't have it. No.
It's nothing. Maybe it's coming later. Thank you for telling me that.
The Shanghai people get used to it. Yes.
Yeah. Yes. They get used to it. We have too much garbage. Yes.
Hey, thanks so much for watching. I know this is a really short report
on recycling in Qingdao. It only started to
happen just literally a month before we left
China. So there wasn't much to report but I thought it would be interesting for
you to see where China is in some cities in their
recycling program and progress towards recycling overall and their commitment
to maintaining this earth and I hope that you enjoyed this and if
you did, please feel free to subscribe and share
this with other people. We really appreciate you watching
and again, thanks so much.
