Bringing pre-cleaned vegetables into the city can cut household waste by 20 percent and save 160 million yuan in spending

Half a watermelon rind, cabbage outer leaves, celtuce leaves…… five or six kinds of fruit and vegetable waste filled a single garbage bag in the hands of Guo Caifeng, a resident born in the 1950s. At 5 pm yesterday, Ms. Guo, who lives in Caishikou, saw the garbage truck arrive at her door on time as usual, and working both hands at once, she laboriously tossed the two big bags of household waste she was carrying into the truck compartment, half of which came from the kitchen.

Does buying pre-cleaned vegetables at the supermarket really offer less value than buying vegetables at the morning market? A reporter's investigation found that if factors such as waste generation and secondary handling are all taken into account, pre-cleaned vegetables do not necessarily “lose” to morning market vegetables that still have to be sorted again after being brought home.

⟦NL> The post-50s morning market camp

After sorting, the actual unit price rises by more than 10%

Ms. Guo, who has lived in Beijing for most of her life, is a typical “good household manager.” She never even goes to the morning market early to buy vegetables; instead, she leaves home only after 11:30 am, when the vendors are about to pack up. She has her own little calculation: “At that time the vendors are all in a hurry to close up and go home, and the vegetable prices can be quite a bit cheaper than in the morning. If you run into some that are not so fresh, it is still worth it even if you throw more away.”

The morning market where Ms. Guo buys vegetables is located at Tianhe Market inside Guang'anmen, Xicheng District. In September, her recorded vegetable-buying diary was as follows: within one week she mainly bought tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and eggplants, with unit prices per 500 grams of 1.7 yuan, 1.3 yuan, 1.5 yuan and 1 yuan respectively. That day she bought 3 jin 5 liang of tomatoes (1750 grams), 3 jin of cucumbers (1500 grams), 2 jin 3 liang of celery (1150 grams) and 1 jin 8 liang of eggplants (900 grams), and the vegetable costs were 5.95 yuan, 3.9 yuan, 3.45 yuan and 1.8 yuan respectively.

Taken together, the waste “loss rates” of the tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and eggplants Ms. Guo bought were 12.8%, 5.3%, 15.7% and 17.8% respectively. On this basis, the price per 500 grams of the edible portion of these vegetables rose to 1.95 yuan, 1.37 yuan, 1.78 yuan and 1.22 yuan. That is to say, except for cucumbers, the “edible portion unit price” of the other vegetables after sorting rose by more than 10% compared with the selling price, and the largest increase was eggplants, at 22%.

The post-80s “pre-cleaned vegetables” camp

Saving the time spent sorting makes the higher price still acceptable

Shi Cheng, born in the 1980s, lives on Guang'anmen Station West Street in Xicheng District. Because he and his wife both work jobs that have them out early and back late, they simply have no time during the day to buy vegetables at the community vegetable market. If they want to cook at home, they buy “pre-cleaned vegetables” at a large supermarket in Maliandao.

“Supermarket vegetables are more expensive than those at the morning market.” This is almost the first impression of residents who often buy vegetables, but what is the actual situation? Shi Cheng handed over his supermarket vegetable-buying diary. The vegetables he bought also included tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and eggplants, with selling prices per 500 grams of 1.98 yuan, 6.25 yuan, 0.79 yuan and 1.1 yuan respectively. The net contents of these vegetables Shi Cheng bought were 490 grams, 400 grams, 684 grams and 852 grams. “I used to think buying vegetables at the morning market was cheaper too, but after getting married and cooking for myself I discovered that vegetables bought from the supermarket have almost no unnecessary waste when sorted, so they are not necessarily less economical,” he said.

However, most consumers do not have a high level of acceptance of pre-cleaned vegetables. “What is sold in the supermarket near us is organic pre-cleaned vegetables. One night after work I brought home one eggplant, just about the amount for one dish, and it actually cost 8 yuan. This kind of precious vegetable is fine once in a while, but buying it every day would really hurt my wallet,” said Xiao Shao, who lives near Mudanyuan.

Pre-cleaned vegetables entering the city

Waste disposal spending reduced by about 160 million yuan per year

According to statistics from the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Beijing began collecting household waste removal and treatment fees throughout the city in September 1999. The standard for residents' household waste charges (including household waste removal and treatment fees) is 66 yuan per household per year, but waste charges can cover only 20% of treatment costs, with the rest still subsidized by public finances. Residents generate an average of about 0.85 kilograms of waste per day, or 310 kilograms per year, with a treatment cost of about 124 yuan. If calculated at an average of 2.5 people per household, the annual waste treatment cost generated by each household is 310 yuan. At present each household is charged 66 yuan, and the remaining part is entirely subsidized by public finances.

Data show that in developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan, the pre-cleaned vegetable industry has a history of several decades of development. In Japan's formulated policy for reducing waste, not only are unprocessed vegetables banned from entering the city, but the scope of the ban has also expanded along with urban expansion. For example, Tokyo stipulates that within the Eighth Ring Road, unprocessed vegetables are prohibited from entering, thereby reducing urban household waste by 20%.

What does this 20% mean? At present, Beijing produces more than 18,000 tons of waste per day. If loaded onto trucks, it would be enough to line up all the way around Beijing's Third Ring Road. At Beijing's current treatment cost of 124 yuan per ton, about 160 million yuan less would be spent each year. This does not even include the construction costs of waste treatment facilities. Building one large landfill requires hundreds of millions of yuan, and building one large waste incineration plant costs as much as billions of yuan.