Smart bins and smtarting to appear on the streets and in the communities around the city. It’s a great initiative although it does put householders to much more work.
I have never previously considered it necessary to split my rubbish into categories before disposing of it because it has always (certainly in Nanjing) been tipped onto the street and gone through by entrepreneurial people looking for materials and items they recycle.
However, now householders have a duty to divide and dispose of rubbish into 6 categories and in order to access the new bins, eachhousehold has a unique QR code which gets scanned in order to open the electronic bins.
So, if you’re feeling a bit lazy and just chuck your rubbish into any bin, then Big Brother knows who you are and they will track you down and you get a fine. I wonder if there is any aspect of life in Shanghai which is not controlled or measured or photographed these days.
There are no blinc spots in Shanghai now apparently, so we cannot move around without cameras recording us, facial recognition systems ensure BB knows just where we are and when. Of course Wechat knows what I spend, where, what I take photos of, who I’m with and who my friends are, which groups I belong to and which parties I’m going to.
That’s the price you pay for being here and if you don’t want to accept that, you just don’t come here to live, but it comes to something when even your trash is analysed and checked. Time to leave I think.