From S China Morning Post on 12 July 2012:
But following strong opposition to government plans to build five incinerators in the city, the launch of the pilot schemes has met with a mixed response.
…
Ma Tian, a Panyu district resident, said he noticed that another rubbish bin of a different colour was placed in front of his building about a month ago, but he had no idea what it was for.
'We just put garbage in whichever bin is not full,' he said, adding that he had noticed that the garbage collectors just piled the rubbish into one truck anyway.
It is not the first time the city has attempted to introduce garbage sorting. It introduced bins for sorted rubbish more than 10 years ago, with little impact, and then ran a pilot programme in its Yuexiu district two years ago, again without much success.
Peng Peng, deputy director of the Guangdong Society of Economic Reform, attributed the previous failures to a lack of accompanying measures and publicity.
'Although residents sorted their garbage, the waste was still mixed together in the process of collecting and transporting,' he said.
'The garbage sorting was practically meaningless.'