Sorting waste is an important prerequisite of recycling. More needs to be done in Beijing, said a column in People's Daily (excerpts below).

In the western rural part of Beijing, there is a small hill covered in green. As wind blows, one can feel a breath of nature that is rare in the city.

You may not expect it is an industrial garden for waste recycling that deals with 1,600 tons of garbage every day. Life waste, kitchen waste and medical waste are all sent to their own departments and end up as materials for recycled products. The electricity produced here can save 70 thousand tons of coal every year, thus reducing air pollution.

However, there is one prerequisite to efficient recycling of garbage — waste sorting. Only if people throw different types of garbage into different collection bins can they be recycled.

That is the biggest problem for waste recycling in Beijing: the city has sampled for waste sorting since 2000, however, of 2,400 communities selected, the results are not good. It is common to see people put all sorts of waste into one plastic bag and throw it into any of the collection bins at will.

More needs to be done to urge people to better sort their garbage, so that more resources can be saved and pollution can be reduced in Beijing.