The city of Guangzhou, Guangdong province spent more than a year on a waste classification pilot project and implemented the new Interim Provisions on Guangzhou Urban Domestic Wastes Classification Management, on April 1, 2011, China's first, with penalties for individuals or businesses who fail to classify their domestic waste.

The regulation has four categories for waste -- recyclable, kitchen, hazardous, and other -- but, in Guangzhou the people only need to separate it by "dry" and "wet" waste, because further sorting will be done by sanitation workers and recycling centers.

While what they do have to do might seem insignificant, it can greatly reduce the later sorting and recycling workload. In 2010, Guangzhou's daily waste output fell to 13,000 metric tons, from 15,000 tons the previous year, and the "end-of-pipe" treatment rate fell from 2009's 79.6 percent to 73.8 percent in 2010, meaning that more than a quarter of its domestic waste was classified and recycled.

But, the challenge the regulation faced were: many citizens concerned that there wouldn't be enough personnel to check the sorting; people thinking it unfair to levy fines when the waste classification system was not fully installed; and others questioning the 50-yuan ($7.50) fine on waste classification violations.

Zhang Jianguo, vice-director of the Guangzhou urban management, points out that the fines are just the means for enforcement and not the end, and people are expected to report the cheaters and develop the habit of classifying waste, so that, in the end, they will no longer need to think about fines. In any case, the regulation is provisional.

The Guangzhou management say they will issue waste classification guidelines for every family in the city and promote waste classification in newspapers and on TV, or, in the words of Guo Weiqing, a professor at the Sun Yat-sen University, "Waste classification is bound to be a long term process even with good regulations and infrastructure because it takes time for citizens to develop good habits. We shouldn't expect the situation to improve overnight, but nor should we stop promoting waste classification simply because we don't see results immediately."