年度归档 2025年7月27日

People’s Daily Online, London, April 24 (Yang Bo, Daytime Travel) The history of garbage recycling in Britain can be traced back to before industrialization, when waste from burning wood and coal was collected and used as the basic material for making bricks. However, the recycling at that time was because the economic advantages of renewable resources were higher than those of original materials, and there was a lack of public waste removal system in densely populated areas.

In Britain and Ireland around 1800, beverage bottles were recycled by some beverage manufacturers.

In 1813, Benjamin Raul combined rag fibers with raw wool to pass off as wool, which can be regarded as a kind of "garbage recycling", but this material made the inferior industry in West Yorkshire last for nearly a hundred years from the early 19th century.

In the past ten years, Britain has introduced some new regulations to encourage more recycling. These measures include imposing fines on those who do not reduce household waste, and putting more emphasis on sorting waste into different recyclable materials. Each local authority has different rules.

Now about 177 million tons of waste are produced in England every year. In order to reduce expenditure and produce waste, the British government issued the Waste Prevention Plan for England in 2013. In May 2014, the "Innovation of Waste Prevention Fund" funded by the Ministry of Environment was launched.

The government will require enterprises to be responsible for the products they produce, and the law also requires some enterprises to ensure that part of the products they sell are recycled and reused. These products include packaging, batteries, electrical and electronic equipment, vehicles and so on. At the same time, the government cooperates with the garbage industry through the "waste management responsibility agreement" to ensure that enterprises recycle as simply as possible and improve household recycling and waste collection. Laws have also been introduced to crack down on crimes, including illegal dumping of waste, operation of illegal waste management sites and illegal export of waste.

Domestic waste is subdivided into three categories.

In Britain, the classification of domestic waste recycling is very detailed, and the "Domestic Waste Recycling Act 2003" requires governments all over England to provide at least two kinds of recyclable materials collection services to every family.

So now we can see that in a single-family British family with a garden, there are usually three trash cans in front of the door or backyard. The colors of the lids are different, and the types of garbage inside are different.

For example, in some places, the trash can with black lid is used to hold "general garbage", the trash can with blue lid is used to hold "recyclable garbage", and the trash can with green lid is used to hold garden and kitchen waste. In another area, the color may be different from the barrel to the lid.

In addition to general garbage, the other two kinds of garbage are classified strictly. "Recyclable garbage" can be glass bottles, paper products, cans, degradable plastic bags, etc., while "garden or kitchen waste" can only be dead leaves, weeds or food, but not soil, stones and packaging. According to the specific classification regulations, the government will issue special leaflets and stuff them into users’ mailboxes on a regular basis or directly stick them on users’ trash can lids by garbage collectors.

When it comes to the division of plastic bags, it is difficult for ordinary people to quickly identify whether they are recyclable. Fortunately, most of the packaging of articles will clearly indicate whether the packaging can be recycled. It’s just that not all people will be "selective" when throwing garbage, so there are always people who intentionally or unintentionally "foul". Once they are discovered by the "eye-catching" recyclers, you will usually "harvest" a "warning sheet" on the lid of your trash can.

People who live in apartments do not have a garden, so they need only separate the recyclable garbage list. There is a special garbage station next to the apartment, and the oversized garbage bins inside are also classified.

Generally, special garbage trucks and workers will come to collect the three kinds of garbage at a fixed time every week. The night before, people just need to push the garbage bins usually stored in the backyard or by the door to the roadside near the main street, and the next morning, they may still be dreaming, and they can hear the sound of the roaring garbage trucks coming.

To "enjoy" such on-site service, you need to pay a certain fee, which is usually included in the monthly council tax collected by local governments. However, the budget of some places is relatively tight recently, so the recycling time of garden and kitchen waste is extended from once a week to once every two weeks.

Last year, there were news reports that families with children under three years old in a region of Wales had to provide their children’s birth certificates to collect diapers every two weeks, otherwise they would collect diapers together with domestic garbage every three weeks, which was said to be for the purpose of environmental protection.

Of course, if you don’t want to pay the garbage collection fee, there is a way. You can throw it directly into the nearby "garbage dump".

When I first entered this "garbage dump", I felt a sense of "dazzling", because the types of garbage inside were too fine. Recyclable paper products were divided into paper packaging, newspapers and magazines, and old clothes and sheets should be separated. In addition, there were cooking oil, batteries, small household appliances and so on. Once you saw that you were carrying the bag in the wrong direction, the staff next to you would come forward to guide you.

As for the "large-scale garbage" like old furniture, either make an appointment with a charity to collect it at home or pay someone to buy it. The cost may be higher than you think, and there is no service that can be sold as waste in China.

The policy focus shifts from punishment to reward.

Recently, the focus of Britain’s garbage recycling policy has shifted from punishing those who don’t recycle to encouraging more people to recycle through rewards.

WRAP, the waste and resources action plan, is a registered charity, which is jointly funded by several British government departments and the European Union.

Its website, Recyclenow, provides detailed guidance and suggestions to those who want to seriously classify garbage, and classifies recyclable garbage into six categories: sprays, food, plastic bottles, clothes, electronic equipment and medicines.

pressurized spray

For example, about 60% of waste such as used air fresheners is made of tinned steel, and about 40% is made of aluminum. Both metals can be recycled. It also contains some small plastic and rubber parts, including covers, valves and dip tubes, which can be extracted and fully recycled. If everyone in the UK can recycle an empty air freshener, the converted energy will be enough for the TV energy of 273,000 families.

food

Food recycling includes banana peel, leftovers, tea bags and so on. Usually, any cooked or raw food waste can be recycled, but it is necessary to ensure that all packaging, especially plastic packaging, is taken out.

There are several ways to treat the collected food waste. In some areas, it is mixed with garden waste and transported to local commercial composting facilities. This compost will be used in agriculture, landscaping and gardening. If food waste is collected separately, a method called anaerobic digestion is usually used to generate green electricity.

plastic bottle

It is estimated that Britain uses an average of 35.8 million plastic bottles every day, but only 19.8 million plastic bottles can be recycled every day, which means that an average of 16 million plastic bottles cannot enter the recycling station every day.

The recycling of plastic bottles requires emptying and washing articles, taking off the lid and squeezing the bottles to save space.

Clothing and textiles

Even damaged clothes and faded curtains, which are not suitable for reuse by others, can be recycled to create new items, such as cushions, cleaning cloths and industrial blankets for chairs and car seats. Charities everywhere in Britain recycle clothing and textiles, and different charities collect items slightly differently.

Some stores, such as H&M and Martha, collect old clothes in the store. Martha also collected it through charity partner Oxfam, and offered a discount the next time the donor went to Martha to buy it.

electronic equipment

Usually, when buying new electronic goods, stores will recycle old equipment, especially larger items, such as televisions and refrigerators and freezers. Other recycling methods include online junk exchange and selling websites. For unwanted mobile phones and tablets, some merchants can get cash or redeem gift certificates.

medicines and chemical reagents

Unopened, unused and expired drugs can be returned to the pharmacy for disposal. It is estimated that as much as 300 million pounds of unused or partially used drugs are wasted in Britain every year and cannot be recycled or reused. Therefore, the British medical system calls on people to think carefully before ordering duplicate prescriptions.

The road to comprehensive recycling is "long"

In addition to government regulations and services, it is equally important to raise people’s awareness of environmental protection and economy. For example, statistics for many years show that the amount of food wasted by the British is still amazing. In 2013, food worth 15.1 billion pounds was thrown into the trash can by the British. Statistics in 2014 found that up to 400 tons of food is still wasted every year, and the average person wastes up to 200 pounds of food every year.

With the continuous efforts of British government departments, the classification and recycling of garbage has made remarkable progress, but the overall household garbage recovery rate has been below 50%. According to the latest data from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) of the British government, from 2000/01 to 2009/10, household recycling in the UK increased by 235%; In 2009/10, 23 million tons of domestic waste were generated, of which 9.4 million tons were recovered, reused or composted, with compost accounting for the largest proportion, accounting for 40% of the total. In 2015, the recycling rate of households in England was 43.9%, which was 0.9 percentage points lower than that of 44.8% in 2014. Also since 2011, the "domestic garbage recycling rate" was lower than 44% for the first time.

The British referendum decided to leave the European Union, which also brought certain policy uncertainty to garbage sorting and recycling. If Britain leaves the EU, all kinds of EU regulations and standards that regulate all walks of life will face the process of replacing them with Britain’s own. Whether to completely follow the original EU system or reset Britain’s own system will create a certain policy vacuum or delay in the short term, such as promoting garbage collection. Recently, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the general election will be held in advance, which will aggravate the uncertainty and delay of this policy to a certain extent. Although it will not necessarily affect the implementation of policies such as garbage collection, it will certainly have a certain impact on further promotion.　

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The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) learned from China Construction International Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Construction International Group") that on June 21st, two community isolation treatment facilities (hereinafter referred to as "projects") aided by the central government in Penny’s Bay and Kai Tak were completed.

Huang Weilun, Director of the Development Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR Government, said at the delivery ceremony of the above-mentioned projects that the central government is the strongest backing of Hong Kong. He once again thanked the Central Committee for its guidance and full support, the Liaison Office of Hong Kong for its guidance and coordination, the full cooperation of various departments of the SAR Government, and the construction team for working against the clock, so that the project could be delivered in batches on schedule, greatly enhancing Hong Kong’s ability to fight the epidemic.

The above two projects have been delivered in batches since construction started in February this year. Up to now, a total of about 10,000 rooms have been provided, all of which were designed and built by China Construction International Group.

After the outbreak of The 5th Wave in Hong Kong, the central government decided to build 10 epidemic prevention facilities in Hong Kong. China Construction International Group was responsible for building 8 of them, including 6 temporary community isolation facilities and 2 permanent community isolation treatment facilities. The 6 temporary community isolation facilities were delivered on March 24th.

The completion and delivery of Penny’s Bay and Kai Tak projects also marks the delivery of all the epidemic prevention projects aided by the central government to Hong Kong.

"At present, the epidemic situation in Hong Kong has eased, but it still cannot be relaxed. We will concentrate all our efforts to promote the rapid completion of the project and provide a solid guarantee for Hong Kong to fight the COVID-19 epidemic in The 5th Wave. " Ye Hong, deputy commander-in-chief of the Central Committee’s aid to the Penny’s Bay Community Isolation Treatment Facility Project in Hong Kong, said.

The community isolation treatment facility in Kai Tak, which was assisted by the Central Government, was completed and delivered on June 21st. All the pictures in this article are provided by China Construction International Group.

"More than 90% of the workload has been prefabricated in the factory"

The two projects, Penny’s Bay and Kai Tak, which were aided by the central government, received the construction task on February 18th, and were formally constructed on February 19th, and delivered on June 21st.

The Kai Tak project is located next to the cruise terminal of the runway of the old airport in Kai Tak, Hong Kong. It covers an area of nearly 110,000 square meters and has a building area of over 110,000 square meters. It includes four-storey MiC quarantine facilities and other ancillary facilities, providing more than 2,700 isolation units and more than 6,000 isolation beds (including standard rooms, disabled suites, family suites and other rooms). It is the first four-storey community treatment facility in Hong Kong with elevator system. Upon completion, it will become the highest level permanent community isolation treatment facility project in Hong Kong.

Penny’s Bay Project is located in the northeast of Lantau Island, New Territories, Hong Kong. It covers an area of about 450,000 square meters, with a building area of about 272,000 square meters. It is divided into six areas, each of which is equipped with auxiliary facilities such as medical treatment, office and storage. It is the largest community isolation treatment facility project in Hong Kong.

During the design and construction of the above-mentioned projects, China State Construction International Group took epidemic prevention emergency and peacetime use into account, fully applied the modular design concept based on DfMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly), and at the same time applied MiC (Assembly and Synthesis Building Method) and prefabricated components, and integrated smart construction technology.

"More than 90% of the workload has been prefabricated in the factory." A manager of China State Construction International Group told The Paper that because of the parallel operation of the site and the factory, the site load was reduced, and the construction efficiency, quality and safety were guaranteed. Compared with traditional buildings, the construction period could be reduced by 40% to 90%, the material loss in the construction process could be reduced by more than 25%, the construction carbon emission by more than 50% and the construction waste emission by more than 70%.

The community isolation treatment facility in Penny’s Bay, a central aid port, was completed and delivered on June 21st.

Penny’s Bay and Kai Tak projects are in accordance with Hong Kong’s permanent building standards and Hong Kong’s building regulations, which can meet the durability requirements for 50 years. The whole cycle is safe and reliable. A single MiC box weighs 12 tons and can withstand a typhoon of magnitude 17.

Not only that, but also in the design and construction, it is more humanized. It not only has good shock-proof, sound insulation and heat insulation effects, but also requires extremely high details such as cleaning partition, drainage, sewage discharge and exhaust, and strictly implements the infection control standards of Hong Kong Quarantine Center.

Faced with the force majeure such as epidemic situation and weather, the construction team faced several challenges, such as short time, difficult recruitment, large workload, poor logistics and insufficient raw materials, but in the end the construction team broke through multiple challenges.

"We have built a life-cycle management system for intelligent traffic scheduling, from the factory production and maritime transportation of MiC boxes to warehousing and installation, to achieve life-cycle management." Liu Baoqing, the commander of the central government’s aid to build Hong Kong Kai Tak community isolation treatment facilities, said.

According to the materials provided by China Construction International Group, as the "rear area" of this project, Zhongjian Hailong Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongjian Hailong") under the group undertakes the heavy responsibility of producing and transporting 10,032 main modules and 7,630 functional modules of two centrally aided community isolation treatment facilities projects, and its task scale is equivalent to 11 Vulcan Mountains.

In order to deliver all boxes with good quality and quantity, the company mobilized all available forces, worked 24 hours a day, completed drawing design in 2 days, purchased 50,000 tons of steel and hundreds of materials in 7 days, convened more than 400 managers and 5,300 workers in 10 days, and sent the first batch of MiC to Hong Kong in 14 days.

Shandong Hailong and Chongqing Hailong bases under China Construction Hailong stopped about 90% of their own production capacity, put all available production lines and personnel into the project, and completed materials procurement, box production, box decoration and other work in a very short time through professional integration and cross-deepening design and factory processing and prefabrication, with an average of more than 13,000 people starting work in a single day during the peak period.

Make every "impossible task" possible.

For all builders, this central aid to Hong Kong is an unforgettable life experience.

"Looking back at the beginning of the project, we are faced with the situation that we have to start work everywhere, design everywhere, and coordinate everywhere. Many employees have taken the initiative to come from all over the country to support, and they feel very embarrassed when they can’t come." Liu Baoqing said that he was deeply impressed by a project manager of the team who was unfortunately diagnosed with COVID-19 due to family contact. The project manager apologized for not being able to make efforts for the project.

"I was also very moved at that moment." Liu Baoqing said that the service life of the Kai Tak project he is responsible for is 50 years. Compared with several shelter projects completed in advance, this project needs to work together to achieve the goal.

Workers are working on the site of the community isolation treatment facility in Kai Tak, which is aided by the Central Government.

"We have been surpassing ourselves and breaking through the limits." Liu Baoqing said.

As an internal engineer of Kai Tak Project, Tong Anqi and the team are responsible for the ground structure and related projects at the project site.

He remembers that when the project started, Hong Kong was particularly wet and cold, and the somatosensory temperature was very low, and all the colleagues’ shoes were soaked. At that time, he thought, "This project must be a hard battle in the future."

Since then, it has proved to be true.

"At the beginning, due to the shortage of manpower, many colleagues were unable to go to work due to isolation, but there were still many colleagues who took the initiative to contact me and volunteered to participate in the war. Some of them have several jobs, and some colleagues and children have just been born, but they still come to the Kai Tak project without hesitation. At that time, they raised their hands, which still made me unforgettable. " Yan Anzhen said.

Jia Tao is also an internal engineer in the Kai Tak Community Project. He has previously participated in the construction of the emergency epidemic prevention and isolation center in Lei Yue Mun, Hong Kong and the temporary hospital in Hong Kong aided by the central government. Compared with before, this is the first time he is in charge of an engineering section, so he feels "great responsibility".

"For our planning and arrangement ability, communication and coordination ability, it is an’ upgraded version’ test." Jia Tao said that the Penny’s Bay project also faces several major challenges, such as large construction area, large number of people starting work and congenital insufficient traffic conditions.

Therefore, the construction team set up a matrix management system, publicized the construction plan to each team in time, held daily communication meetings on safety and environmental protection progress, promptly resumed trading, and investigated hidden dangers. It took 10 days to actively negotiate with the government to build two new docks to ensure that MiC boxes transported from the mainland were unloaded through the docks.

"From the earliest participation in the Lei Yue Mun project to the present, every time I feel that it is an impossible task, but with the joint efforts of our brothers, all these impossibilities have become possible." Ye Hong concluded.

He served as the deputy commander of Penny’s Bay Project this time, and had rich experience in epidemic prevention project construction before. In 2020, he participated in the emergency quarantine center project of Hong Kong Lei Yue Men Park Resort and the construction of phases 1B and 3B of Penny’s Bay Quarantine Center project, and was stationed in the factory of Zhongjian Hailong in Zhuhai to be responsible for the production and transportation of MiC boxes.

"This Penny’s Bay project involves more than 7,000 boxes, which is nearly 10 times the size of a single project at that time, but we have achieved great compression in time." Ye Hong said that during this construction, he fully felt the rapid development of the company’s rapid construction technology.

"This time, when I really have the opportunity to take charge of a specific work of the project, I will want to make my own contribution to the motherland and Hong Kong like my predecessors." Zheng Juehui, an engineer in the Penny’s Bay project aided by the central government, said that at the end of 2020, he had just arrived in Hong Kong to take part in the construction of the temporary hospital project aided by the central government in Hong Kong. This time, he was mainly responsible for material procurement, receipt, distribution and warehouse management in the Penny’s Bay project.

As a Hong Kong resident who participated in the epidemic prevention project for the first time, Zhang Weiquan claimed that he felt "a sense of honor" when he could participate in the epidemic prevention project.

Chen Bihua, who is also a Hong Kong resident, served as the subcontractor evaluation of the Kai Tak community isolation treatment facility project, and was responsible for the deployment of front-line construction workers, machinery and equipment of underground facilities such as earthwork, drainage and electric wires.

He has rich experience in the construction of epidemic prevention projects. He has previously participated in the construction of the quarantine center of Lei Yue Men Park Resort, the community treatment facility of Yabo Pavilion and the Hong Kong Infection Control Center of North Lantau Hospital.

At the beginning of the project, Chen Bihua realized the importance of the project to Hong Kong’s social epidemic prevention work, took the initiative to apply for follow-up projects, and devoted himself to the construction of the Kai Tak project.

"It is a meaningful thing to participate in the Kai Tak project. We all hope to contribute to the society and help all Hong Kong citizens." Chen Bihua said.