Just a year and a half after banning imports of foreign waste, China is now waging a war on its domestic trash. Effective this year, all cities nationwide are required to establish a garbage sorting system. And from today, Shanghai will start enforcing fines on individuals and businesses that fail to properly sort their trash. CGTN's Xu Mengqi reports.

Five months after Shanghai announced it would be obligatory for people to sort their trash, the talks are finally a reality. Across the city's neighborhoods, volunteers are assigned to advise and supervise residents at waste drop-off points. New logistics chains are now up to handle the different types of waste. And if trash is left mixed, garbage collectors will simply reject it. But why is Shanghai doing this now?

XU MENGQI SHANGHAI "The answer is too much rubbish. On an average day Shanghai produces about 26,000 tons of trash. And authorities say if two weeks of that amount is piled up, it'll be as tall as one of these skyscrapers."

QI YUMEI SHANGHAI LANDSCAPING & CITY APPEARANCE ADMINISTRATIVE BUREAU "Now Shanghai's trash per capita has reached 1.08 kilograms. If you compare it with developed cities, for example even Tokyo, it's only about 1 kg."

One problem is, Shanghai doesn't recycle as well as Tokyo. With so much being thrown away every day, the city's landfills and incinerators are already working at over capacity

XU MENGQI SHANGHAI "Well ideally if everyone in Shanghai sorts their trash as required, for example, batteries are tossed with hazardous materials and get handled separately, plastic bottles are recycled, and these leftovers get collected for composting -- given Chinese people's famous obsession with food, the amount of kitchen waste produced every day, is just enormous -- then that will reduce the total amount of trash and consequently the pollution from burning or burying them. But the challenge is, how to get the 24 million residents of Shanghai all buy into that?"

Well, for easier management, Shanghai opted for the so-called "fixed time, fixed spot" approach, meaning residents can only throw their garbage away at a certain point, during specific hours of the day. That, is of course where things get complicated.

SHANGHAI RESIDENT "Actually for us wage earners, it is particularly inconvenient, because if we work overtime we might miss the hours."

SHANGHAI RESIDENT "Now all of a sudden the old bins are retracted and I can't throw rubbish out after 9 o 'clock. I think there should be more flexibility."

SHANGHAI RESIDENT "There needs to be intervention from the beginning. That we understand, but if it's for the long run then it'll be really inconvenient."

Inconvenience, however, is the whole purpose, according to Shanghai authorities. Only when throwing out trash isn't all that simple and easy, will it be likely that the amount of trash can be reduced from the source. XMQ, CGTN, SH.