Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512

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Journal of Environmental Management

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Implementation effect of municipal solid waste mandatory sorting policy

in Shanghai
Yao Wang a, b, *, Yu Shi a, Jizhi Zhou c, Jun Zhao a, Tek Maraseni d, Guangren Qian a
a
Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China
b
Shanghai Institute of Geological Survey, Shanghai, 200072, China
c
School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China
d
Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, 4350, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In Shanghai, the biggest metropolis in China, the source classification of domestic waste began in the 1990s but
Municipal solid waste management achieved little success over the past thirty years. Surprisingly, the compulsory classification provision of
Waste sorting rule Shanghai residents’ domestic waste since 2019 has been successful. In this work, the overall status, and chal­
Classification efficiency
lenges of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Shanghai under compulsory waste sorting rules are
Shanghai
investigated. We tracked the classification efficiency of municipal solid waste, physicochemical characteristics of
separated waste, and the carbon emissions arising from waste disposal system. It was found that almost 83.62 %
of household food waste has been effectively separated with high purity of 99.50 %, while the lower heating
value (LHV) of residual waste was increased by 96.4 % compared to previous years. With effective waste clas­
sification, the net carbon emission of separated processing was reduced to 0.11 ton CE/ton waste. However, this
system generated some negative outcomes as well such as the lower recovery value of metal in bottom ash and
the higher chloride content in fly ash. Moreover, we have documented and discussed several challenges of
sustainable waste management system in Shanghai in the text. In order to overcome those challenges, we
recommend to: (i) establish a finer source separation and recycling system; (ii) develop highly-efficient resource
recovery technologies of byproducts from waste disposal system; and (iii) propose optimization adjustment
strategy for overcapacity in incineration facilities.

1. Introduction
Waste classification is regarded as one of the most important stra­
tegies for Municipal solid waste (MSW) management, and its success
depends on the active participation of local residents (Zhang et al.,
2021). In addition, high quality recycling relies on effective source
separation of waste (Gundupalli et al., 2017; Xiao et al., 2020). Nowa­
days, developed countries have already issued many refined waste
sorting rules, but there is a stark difference in the effects of these rules.
Japan passed waste sorting legislation in the 1970s, which classifies the
domestic waste into 25 categories (Ozkan et al., 2015). As a result, the
recovery rate of paper and plastic separated from MSW reached 76 %,
59 % respectively in 2017 (Japanese Ministry of environment, 2019).
Similarly, the domestic waste in Germany was classified into 14 cate­
gories and achieved the recovery rate of 67.2 % (Kalogirou et al., 2012).
While the recovery rate was just 19 % in Greece, since the rough
waste-sorting rule of six categories (Kalogirou et al., 2012). With the aim
of being globally competitive in high quality recycling and achieving
100 % recovery rate, the European Commission has adopted a new
Circular Economy Action Plan in 2020. This Action Plan proposes to
harmonies separate waste collection systems to help citizens, businesses,
and public authorities better separate waste, and put forward the target
that halves the amount of residual (non-recycled) municipal waste by
2030 (European Commisson, 2020).
China, as the world’s largest MSW generator along with fast urban­
ization and industrialization since 2004 (Kaza et al., 2018), the shifting
to systematic waste separation and a more sustainable disposal and
recycle model of MSW resources are high on the agenda (Zhang et al.,
2010). Shanghai, as China’s most populous city and the “pioneers” of
Chinese government reform, started the planning of domestic waste

* Corresponding author. Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, No.99 Shangda Rd., Baoshan District, Shanghai, 200444,
China.
E-mail address: wangyaobmp@shu.edu.cn (Y. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113512
Received 29 January 2021; Received in revised form 21 July 2021; Accepted 7 August 2021
Available online 19 August 2021
0301-4797/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Wang et al.
classification as early as in 1990, and also listed into the first batch of
recyclable waste pilot cities in 2006 and urban MSW recycling pilot
cities in 2017 (Xiao et al., 2018). However, the domestic waste classi­
fication activity in the past thirty years achieved little success, not only
because there had inadequate infrastructure for waste sorting, disposal,
and recycling, but also because it was a non-mandatory (voluntary)
policy. Nowadays, Shanghai is under mounting pressure of urban
function transformation, continuous population growth and environ­
mental resource constraint (shanghai municipal people’s government,
2018). To improve the waste sorting efficiency and achieve higher waste
recycling rates, Shanghai implemented the first local urban regulation in
China, Regulation of Shanghai Municipal Solid Waste Management on July
1, 2019 (Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress, 2019). This regulation
lead China into a new era of urban recycling (Chen, 2019), by making a
provision of classifying MSW into four different types: household food
waste, residual waste, recyclable waste, and hazardous waste. Penalties
for refusing to separate waste was as per this classification has been
declared for the first time. Individuals who fail to do so will be fined up
to 200 yuan ($30) while organizations will receive a whopping fine of
RMB 50,000 ($7500).
The impact of policy-driven transition of MSW management is a hot
topic (Wang et al., 2020a), and the new waste-sorting rule implemented
in Shanghai attracted a worldwide attention. Xiao et al. (2020) provided
an overview of the municipal solid waste management modes and in­
novations in Shanghai based on the generation and composition data
from 1978 to 2017, and evaluated policy impacts on the seven scenarios
of MSW management in Shanghai with a system dynamics model. Chen
et al. (2020b) estimated and compared greenhouse gas contributions
during the treatment of food and residual waste from pilot community of
2365 families in Shanghai, China. Nevertheless, to the best of our
knowledge, systematic evaluation of the status and challenges of MSW
management in Shanghai under the enforced MSW classification, and
the influences of waste sorting policies on the life cycle of MSW man­
agement system were not investigated comprehensively. This research is
the beginning in this direction.
The aims of the study are to: (i) evaluate the generation and physi­
cochemical characteristics of classified waste under new waste-sorting
rule; (ii) investigate the influence of waste-sorting rule on waste
disposal system, including the final disposal of secondary waste, and
carbon emissions; and (iii) explore the challenges of MSW management
brought by the new waste-sorting rule in Shanghai.
2. Data, materials and methods
2.1. Data collection and cleaning
The total MSW generation, population, and gross domestic product
(GDP) from 1986 to 2018 were collected from Shanghai Statistical
Yearbook (Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, 2019). The data on
amount and physicochemical characteristics of classified waste from
January 2019 to June 2020, were collected from Shanghai Environ­
mental Sanitary Engineering Design Institute Co. Ltd, and its in-house
journal named Waste Science & Technology.
2.2. Sampling and characterization of MSWI fly ash and bottom ash
Samples of the fly ash and bottom ash were secured from two
municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) plants in Shanghai, with the
disposed capacity of >1000 tons per day. To characterize the variance in
composition of MSWI residue under waste sorting rule, two batches of
samples were collected in June 2019 and December 2019.
The fly ash and bottom ash were sampled twice a day at the random
time and about 1 kg of ash was collected each time. The sampling lasted
for 5 days, thus totally 10 kg of each ash was collected. Then, the
collected ash sample was crushed and dried at 105 ◦ C in an oven for 24
h, and fully mixed by using the ball mill.
2
Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512
The metal content of fly ash and bottom ash was determined by
inductively coupled plasma mass (ICP-MS) (Yue et al., 2019). The sol­
uble chloride content was measured by Chloride Ion Content Rapid
Meter in a DCCL-816 (Beijing Zhongke Corporation).
2.3. Carbon emissions evaluation of MSW disposal system
In the context of climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,
including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O),
produced during waste treatment have attracted wide attention (Lima
et al., 2018; Michel Devadoss et al., 2020). The new waste-sorting rule in
Shanghai took the lead in changing the traditional mixing incineration
(Scenario A) into separated processing (Scenario B) since July 2019.
Carbon emission under two typical waste treatment scenarios induced
by new waste-sorting rule was evaluated using Life Cycle Assessment
method following ISO 14044 guidelines (ISO, 2006b) and the ISO 14040
principles (ISO, 2006a).
The system boundaries of waste disposal scenario A and scenario B
were presented in Fig. 1. The system began with the collected waste
(mixed or separated), including waste disposal processes as well as the
associated upstream and downstream processes. Scenario A depicts the
traditional mixed incineration mode in Shanghai before new waste-
sorting rule came into effect, which happened in June 2019. Scenario
B depicts the separated processing mode under new waste-sorting rule,
consisting of residual waste incineration and anaerobic digestion of
household food waste. The detailed description for carbon emissions
from three different inventories (direct GHGs emissions, indirect GHGs
emission and carbon storage) is provided in Table S1.
The approach of carbon emission evaluation and unspecified pa­
rameters used in this paper were in accordance with (Chen et al.,
2020b), while the measured parameters used in carbon emission
calculation are listed in Table S2, S3, S4 and S5. The heat-trapping po­
tentials of CO2, CH4 and N2O were used to transform their emissions
into unified form of Carbon Equivalent (CE) (Solomon et al., 2007). It
should be noted that, owing to lack of enough data for logistics system,
the emission from fuel consumption in transportation was ignored. In
addition, since the landfill of fly ash and use of bottom ash as aggregate
would not produce GHGs. Therefore, these processes were not consid­
ered in emission inventory.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. MSW generation under new waste-sorting rule
With the implementation of new waste-sorting rule, the average
daily generation of classified MSW (for household food waste, residual
waste, recyclable waste, hazardous waste, respectively, Table 1)
changed significantly in Shanghai from June 2019 to June 2020. It was
apparent that the average daily generation of total MSW generation
fluctuated slightly, maintaining at about 30 thousand tons, except for
the impact of COVID-19 in March 2020. Whereas, the changes in
amounts of separated wastes generation represented a better outcome of
new system. Over the period of one year, the average daily generation of
household food waste, recyclable waste, hazardous waste increased
significantly with the growth rate of 38.59 %, 70.34 % and 1122.22 %,
respectively. While the residual waste declined by 20.10 %, indicating
that other wastes were put into the corresponding waste bin orderly
instead of mixed in residual waste.
3.2. Physicochemical characteristics of classified waste
Fig. 2 depicts the compositions of wet waste and residual waste from
January 2019 to May 2020. Before the new waste-sorting rules came
into effect, putting domestic waste into wrong trash cans was common.
Therefore, in the first half of 2019, the domestic waste collected from
household food waste bins and residual waste bins were similar. The
Y. Wang et al. Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512

Scenario A
Waste to Electricity
Bottom ash Concrete
Production
Mixed waste
Mixed Compression Incineration
Waste Bin Station Treatment plant
Fly ash
Landfill
Leachate
Wastewater Sludge
treatment

Effluent

Scenario B Waste to Electricity

Bottom ash Concrete
Production
Residual waste Compression Incineration
Station Treatment Plant
Fly ash
Landfill
Leachate
Wastewater Sludge
treatment
Separated
Waste Bin
Biogas to Energy Effluent

Household
Biogas Wastewater Sludge
food waste Anaerobic
slurry treatment
Digestion Plant

Biogas residue Aerobic

composting

Fig. 1. System boundaries of waste disposal scenarios before and after waste sorting rule.

for residual waste, in Q4 2019, the combusted constituents including

Table 1
paper and plastics accounted for 17.06 % and 67.56 %, and proportion
The average daily generation of MSW in Shanghai under new waste-sorting rule.
of kitchen waste declined to 2.34 %.
(ton).
Owing to the composition change in household food waste and re­
Time Household Residual Recyclable Hazardous Total sidual waste, the physicochemical characteristic also changed. In terms
food waste waste waste waste
of density, household food waste increased from 196 kg/m3 in Q1 2018
2019.06 6.95E+03 1.94E+04 4.00E+03 2.70E-01 3.04E+04 to 343 kg/m3 in Q4 2019, while the density of residual waste decreased
2019.07 8.20E+03 1.71E+04 4.40E+03 2.90E-01 2.97E+04
from 171 kg/m3 to 95 kg/m3. Similarly, during the same period, the
2019.08 9.20E+03 1.55E+04 4.50E+03 2.90E-01 2.92E+04
2019.09 9.01E+03 1.53E+04 5.61E+03 6.20E-01 2.99E+04 moisture content of household food waste increased by 21.02 %, while
2019.10 8.71E+03 1.48E+04 5.96E+03 1.00E+00 2.95E+04 the moisture content of residual waste reduced by 48.22 %. The lower
2019.11 9.01E+03 1.32E+04 6.34E+03 1.00E+00 2.85E+04 heating value (LHV) of residual waste reached 8190 kJ/kg in Q4 2019,
2020.03 7.39E+03 1.17E+04 3.34E+03 1.66E+00 2.24E+04 with an increase of 96.40 %. This means, more electricity will be pro­
2020.06 9.63E+03 1.55E+04 6.81E+03 3.30E+00 3.19E+04
duced from the waste with higher net calorific value. If the net waste-to-
electricity efficiency of plants is fixed at 26.90 % (Chen et al., 2020a),
purity of household food waste was as low as 55.31 %, while the pro­ the daily net electric energy output of the residual waste in Shanghai
portion of household food waste in residual waste bin was as high as will increase by 4.66 GWh, and the daily net present value of the
53.31 %. With the implementation of new waste-sorting rule, the sorting waste-to-energy project can be increased by 3.03 million RMB.
efficiency of household food waste and residual waste was significantly
improved. The purity of household food waste was increased to 99.45 %,
while the proportion of rubber/plastic, and paper in residual waste also 3.3. Secondary waste generated from MSW disposal system
increased to 42.23 % and 28.88 % in May 2020. The results indicate that
almost 83.62 % of household food waste has been separated in response As noted, the impact of new waste-sorting rule on secondary waste
to new waste-sorting rule in Shanghai. On other hand, under the present generated from residual waste incineration was evaluated by tracking
condition, the proportion of household food waste mixed in residual the composition variations of MSWI fly ashes and bottom ashes gener­
waste was still high (12.10 %), may be due to the residual waste disposal ated from two local waste-to-energy plants in Shanghai (Table 2). After
in bags without effective supervision. the new waste-sorting rule came into effect, the mass percentage of Pb,
This study also tracked the constituents, density, and moisture con­ Cu and Ni in fly ashes from both plants dropped by more than half. The
tent of household food waste and residual waste in Pudong New District, biggest drop occurred for Pb in FA2, decreasing from 0.78 % in FA2-pre to
Shanghai from Q1 2018 to Q4 2019. Benefit from the effective waste- 0.15 % in FA2-after, whereas, the amounts of chloride increased from
sorting rule, the change of composition household food waste and re­ 17.44 % in FA2-pre to 34.79 % in FA2-after. The significant increase of Cl
sidual waste in Pudong New District (Fig. 3) appeared to be similar with in fly ash could be closely related to the higher proportion of plastics in
the whole city (Fig. 2). The proportion of household food waste residual waste (Chen et al., 2012; Kinnarinen et al., 2013). This could
increased from 76.84 % in Q1 2018 to 99.45 % in Q4 2019, while the lead to critical obstacle if fly ash were to be recycled as a partial sub­
proportion of plastic and paper declined from 17.50 % to just 0.56 %. As stitution of construction materials, as the chlorine content in cement
should be as low as 0.06 % (SAC, 2007). Therefore, the elimination of

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Y. Wang et al. Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512

Fig. 2. Composition of household food waste and residual waste in Shanghai.

Fig. 3. Constituents and physicochemical characteristics of household food waste and residual waste in Pudong New District.

chloride from MSWI fly ash is a major challenge of new waste-sorting
policy.
Moreover, the characteristics of MSWI bottom ash in Shanghai also
changed significantly, especially for heavy metals. As Fig. 4 depicts that,
the percentage of iron declined from 41.36 ± 2.15 g/kg to 14.53 ± 1.29
g/kg, indicating the classification efficiency of recyclable waste was
significantly improved. It was also found that, the contents of Cd, Pb, Cu
and Zn in bottom ashes were almost unchanged, while the contents of Cr
and Ni were slightly declined. This means the health risk caused by the
leaching heavy metals ions of bottom ash recycling will be much lower,
mainly due to the decreased content of Cr and Ni.
Anaerobic digestion technology is regarded as the best for

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Y. Wang et al. Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512

Table 2
The elemental composition of MSWI fly ash generated from waste-to-energy plants (%).
Plant Sample Date Cl Zn Pb Cu Cr Cd Ni

A FA1-pre Jun. 2019 17.07 0.71 0.53 0.12 0.024 0.025 0.019
FA1-after Dec. 2019 29.82 0.67 0.29 0.07 0.031 0.012 0.006
B FA2-pre Jun. 2019 17.44 0.81 0.78 0.10 0.026 0.022 0.014
FA2-after Dec. 2019 34.79 0.62 0.15 0.04 0.008 0.025 0.005

Table 3
Carbon equivalence of GHG emissions for waste treatment in Shanghai.
Carbon emission inventories Scenario Scenario
A B

Direct GHGs emission Incineration 5185.67 4750.07

(ton CE/d) wastewater treatment in 50.09 179.33
WWTP
Composting 4.26 12.87
Landfill – 31.95
In-direct power consumption in 19.08 11.22
GHGs emission (ton transfer station
CE/d) power consumption for 487.38 297.2
incineration
power consumption for 0.11 0.27
WWTP
power consumption for 2.63 7.97
sludge treatment
power consumption for – 5.92
anaerobic digestion
Fig. 4. The contents of heavy metals in MSWI bottom ash in Shanghai.
power consumption for – 67.64
aerobic composting
management of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (Cudjoe et al., Chemical dosing in WWTP 29.74 89.98
2020; Fan et al., 2018). The typical disposal technologies of household Carbon storage (ton CE/ Power generation from − 1549.44 − 2081.48
d) incineration
food waste in Shanghai are: (i) ‘Mechanical pretreatment to liquid-phase Bio-products from aerobic – − 15.02
wet anaerobic digestion to solid-phase aerobic fertilizer production’ composting
process in Minhang District; (ii) ‘Mechanical sorting to bio-hydrolysis to Biogas from anaerobic – − 607.98
wet anaerobic digestion’ process in Songjiang District; (iii) ‘Mechanical digestion
Net GHGs emission (ton Total 4229.52 2749.94
crushing separation to liquid-phase wet anaerobic digestion to
CE/d)
solid-phase dry anaerobic digestion’ process in Laogang Site. Biogas Net GHGs emission (ton 0.16 0.11
produced from the anaerobic digestion process consist 50–70 % CE/ton waste)
methane and 30–50 % carbon dioxide (Ayodele et al., 2017), and it has
higher energy (electricity and heat) generation potential than landfill
gas (Cudjoe et al., 2020). Whereas, the biogas residue produced from the Therefore, separated processing of new domestic waste classification
anaerobic digestion process was hardly reused with relatively high pH system (Scenario B) is more effective for carbon emission reduction.
and EC (Li, 2020), its reutilization is identified as a tough bottleneck in
anaerobic digestion of household food waste. 3.5. New challenges for MSW management in Shanghai

Shanghai entered a new waste sorting era with the promulgation of

3.4. Carbon emission variation of MSW disposal system
The carbon equivalence of GHG emissions for waste treatment under
two disposal scenarios (Scenario A, before implanting new rules; and
Scenario B, after implanting new rules) are shown in Table 3.
For Scenario A, the total carbon emissions during the mixed waste
disposal were 5778.96 ton CE/d. And with the large amounts of carbon
storage (− 1549.44 ton CE/d) caused by the electricity generation from
mixed waste incineration, the net carbon emission was 4229.52 ton CE/
d (0.16 ton CE/ton waste). For Scenario B, the total carbon emissions
(5454.42 ton CE/d) were slightly lower than Scenario A, and the net
carbon emission declined to 2749.94 ton CE/d (0.11on CE/ton waste). It
was apparent the separated processing mode provided more energy re­
covery under the compulsory waste sorting rule, because of the higher
LHV of residual waste and the bio-products of aerobic digestion.
Furthermore, it can also be seen that the power generation from incin­
eration still played an important role in the higher carbon storage for
both Scenario A and Scenario B.
The contributions of resource recovery from waste disposal
byproducts, such as thermal power, biogas and biogas residue were
concurrent with the results of Guo and Dai (2017). The new system can
help to reduce the life cycle carbon emissions of waste disposal system.
Regulation of Shanghai Municipal Solid Waste Management on July 1st,
2019. Within the past one year, the constituents and characteristic of
MSW in Shanghai changed significantly. For household food waste,
almost 84 % of them have been effectively separated, and the purity
have already reached to 99.45 %. But for the large-scale success further
breakthrough on policies and technologies are necessary. Firstly, the
finer source separation system and recycling technologies need to be
further developed, since a large amount of low-value solid waste such as
waste plastics mixed in residual waste will exaggerate the environ­
mental risk of incineration residue disposal. Secondly, for the residual
waste, the LHV-value rise substantially after domestic waste classifica­
tion, therefore previous waste incineration facilities which matched
waste with lower LHV-value need to be redesigned. Thirdly, given the
increasing popularity of circular economy to climate change mitigation,
there is an urgent and pressing need for developing high-efficient
resource recovery technologies of byproducts such as generation of
biogas by the anaerobic fermentation of household food waste.
Moreover, because of the imperfect supervision on residual waste
dumping, still about 12.10 % of household food waste has been mixed
into residual waste. Previous study (Meng et al., 2019; Nie et al., 2020)
has shown that residents’ waste classification behaviors may be affected
by four attributes: (1) environmental attitudes; (2) social norms; (3)

5
Y. Wang et al.
environmental knowledge, publicity and education; and (4) environ­
mental facilities and services (situational factors). We have designed a
questionnaire (Table S6) based on the theory of planned behaviors (He
et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020b; Xu et al., 2017), to examine how the
compulsory waste sorting rule influences forming resident’s waste sep­
aration behavior. The waste classification pilot neighborhoods in
Yangpu District have been selected for this questionnaire survey. The
final sample size is 439 after eliminated invalid questionnaires. Results
showed that before implementing compulsory waste sorting rule, only
12.7 % of the interviewees, almost young and middle-aged (20–50 years
old), would independently classify dry and wet garbage and put them
into the corresponding garbage bin. Whereas, the proportion of the in­
terviewees which will do the garbage classification increased to 96.2 %
after the compulsory waste sorting rule is promulgated. In addition,
15.6 % of the respondents said that garbage sorting instructors played a
critical role in changing their behaviors. Government incentives, such as
Green Accounts, have a greater effect on promoting garbage classifica­
tion, especially for the old age (>50 years old) and the young age (<20
years old). Current on-site classification supervision systems and in­
centives need financial support from the government but, in the
long-term, the costs may outweigh the benefits. How to motivate resi­
dents to classify waste actively and consciously without assistance and
guidance from garbage sorting instructors should be the priority of all
levels of governments, media and civil society organizations.
4. Practical applications and future research prospects
Nowadays, there is no standard mode of domestic waste classifica­
tion system applicable to all the cities in China (Li et al., 2019). The
improvements followed by the new compulsory waste sorting rule
implemented in Shanghai have provided instructive significance to
waste classification and separated processing system. However, adop­
tion of Shanghai’s model may not provide the same results to other cities
and regions in China, as the economic development level, cultural and
educational levels, attitudes and behaviors of local residents, and waste
management policies of Shanghai could be significantly different with
that of other cities.
Moreover, impacts of waste classification on urban sustainable
management are worthy of academic attention from a different
perspective. To optimize the domestic waste classification polices and
management system, hybrid assessment methods such as the Strength,
Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis, Multiple Criteria
Decision Analysis (MCDA) combined with decision support system need
to be developed. More environmental impact indicators of MSW man­
agement system need to be considered such as stratospheric ozone
depletion, particulate matter formation, terrestrial acidification, fresh­
water and marine eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, mineral
resource scarcity (Marangon et al., 2021). Moreover, evaluation of
economic cost and with new infrastructure and social support system
need to be performed as they play important role in decision-making of
MSW management (Deshpande et al., 2020; Vlachokostas et al., 2021).
Since the waste management as a complex adaptive system, uncertainty
analysis across all processes is an indispensable part of future research.
For this, a robust statistical analysis including Monte-Carlo simulations
could be used. Additionally, the decision-making behaviors of residents’
waste sorting and recycling behaviors under compulsory or incentive
policies should pay more attention in the future.
5. Conclusions
Since 2019, the new waste-sorting rule in Shanghai has led to the
sharply decline of residual waste generation, and has promoted the
purity of household food waste up to 99.50 %. With the effective waste
classification and energy resources recovery, the separated disposal
processing consisting of residual waste incineration and anaerobic
digestion of household food waste, would help to less carbon emission
6
Journal of Environmental Management 298 (2021) 113512
and more energy recovery. However, the separated disposal processing
followed by waste-sorting has aggravated difficulties of byproducts
recycling generated from MSW disposal system, such as the fly ash with
higher content of chloride and larger amounts of biogas residue. It is
expected that Shanghai need to form a finer classification guideline and
more robust life cycle waste management system, especially for recy­
cling of low-value waste and secondary waste.
CRediT author statement
Yao Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Writing- Original draft preparation. Yu Shi: Visualization, Investigation.
Jizhi Zhou: Resources, Validation. Jun Zhao: Data curation. Tek
Maraseni: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Guangren Qian:
Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2019YFC1906900).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113512.
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