At present, garbage sorting has started in Kunming. The city's waste is currently burned to create electricity rather than being buried. It is conducive to achieve recycle treatment of garbage," said Yin Jiaping, the director of the city's urban management department.

It is said that a plant for recycling of kitchen waste is expected to be built in Kunming next year, in order to protect public health while promoting the reuse of valuable materials.

“Located at eastern suburbs of the city, the plant covers an area of 50 mu, with an estimated investment of 130 million yuan. It will handle about 200 tons of kitchen garbage a day.

Deng Weidong, the deputy director of the urban management department of Kunming said that kitchen waste, which is also referred to as wet waste, comprises such things as leftover food and fruit peel. It can be turned into animal feed additives and organic fertilizer and even using gutter oil as biofuels. The problem of gutter oil or old kitchen oil that has been illegally recycled is expected to be improved.

“For now, the effect of rubbish classification in Kunming is not obvious. The city has adopted a pilot program for garbage classification, and the local government hopes the program can reach 20 percent of residents by 2015. Daily garbage will be sorted into three categories - harmful garbage (red), inorganic garbage (blue) and organic garbage (green).” Deng said.

Nowadays, there are five refuse-burning power plants in Kunming. The harmless treatment capacity of the city’s garbage reached 100 percent. Besides, there are also 5 garbage- buried plants in the city’s suburban county areas, Shilin, Jinning, Dongchuan, Songming and Xundian, and one refuse-burning plants in Anning.

Kunming’s recycling sites for garbage classification reached 76. One hundred residential quarters in the city have gradually joined the recycling system for garbage classification.

A power plant, located at Kunming Economic and Technological Development Zone could deal with 0.58 million tons of waste a year, accounting for 50 percent of total household garbage in Kunming. The power plant’s annual generation of electricity reached 210 million kilowatt hours.

Mass of solid wastes would be separated again at the power plant, due to garbage was not transported in line with its categories. Most residents are yet to develop the awareness and habit of sorting trash into different receptacles. They ignore the different trash cans and throw bags of mixed waste into a same can.

How to make residents cooperate in garbage sorting remains a sticking point.

China Daily had reported that Beijing was asking its citizens for opinions about the proposed garbage classification rules that it intends to introduce to better manage trash, a step toward its goal of reducing the total amount of trash and achieving sustainable treatment of it.

The draft regulations stipulate that individuals who violate trash classification rules would face fines of between 20 to 200 yuan and the fine for work units would be from 5,000 to 50,000 yuan.

Beijing residents might be asked to separate only their kitchen garbage for now before being asked to classify all their household waste, experts said.

Beijing would set up five new garbage incineration plants by the end of 2015 to ensure more than 70 percent of the city's waste could be destroyed by burning. The city now has two incineration plants. The total handling capacity of garbage incineration in the city now is 16,900 tons a day.