When Jiading authorities started to recycle waste from the district's markets, they faced problems during the first few years – as garbage trucks would always mix the waste that had already been sorted, and there were no facilities at dump sites to recycle the waste separately.

But the district government has worked hard to address these issues and it set up four waste disposal sites to make better use of the market waste.

The markets in Jiading produce about 30 tons of waste each day, with more wet waste than dry waste. Wet waste is also referred to as organic waste, and it includes vegetable leaves, fish entrails and eggshells, whereas dry waste includes foam packaging and plastic bags. The government has focused on re-using wet waste as fertilizer, according to a district official.

The initiative means that there are now two trash cans at every vendor's stall in Jiabaomindong Market, Nanxiang Township - one for wet waste and one for dry waste – and the vendors have been instructed to dispose of waste correctly.

Every morning at around 4:30, a sanitation worker surnamed Luo arrives in the market with two buckets. He collects the vendors' trash cans, and puts the dry and wet waste into separate buckets, which are then placed at the market exits, ready for the garbage truck to collect.

Li Jianxin, a garbage truck driver, takes all the buckets – without mixing the contents - to the nearest disposal site where wet waste is processed into fertilizer for the city's green belts.

Jiading's four waste disposal sites - located in Jiangqiang township, Xuxing township, Anting township and Juyuanxin village - deal with 20 tons of waste from 60 markets every day, which makes up 70 percent of the district's total daily market waste.

Jiading plans to build more waste disposal sites this year to deal with the waste from the other eight markets in the district.