The per capita waste reduction rate in the two years since the implementation of the "Forbidden City Zero Waste" has reached 89.2%

Source: China News Network

Beijing, December 20 (Reporter Ying Ni) reporters learned from the "Forbidden City Zero Waste Project Second Anniversary Summary Meeting" held in Beijing on the 20th that since the implementation of the project for two years, the average classification and recycling rate of the Palace Museum has reached 45%, the per capita garbage reduction rate has reached 89.2%, and the total carbon emission reduction per year is equivalent to the carbon sink absorbed by 7719 trees in a year.

Wang Xudong, president of the Palace Museum, said in his speech that the Palace Museum has four major visions: to become a world-class museum, a model of world cultural protection, a leader in the integration of culture and tourism, and a living room of Chinese culture for civilization exchanges and mutual learning. These four visions are closely related to the zero abandonment of the Forbidden City. Through the construction of the "Zero Waste Museum", not only the wisdom of the ancients is extracted, but also the modern advanced environmental protection concept is integrated, and through the close integration of culture and tourism, domestic and foreign audiences are promoted to act together for the community of human destiny.

Coinciding with the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Wang Shi, Chairman of vanke Charity Foundation, brought back what he saw and thought at the climate conference, emphasizing the important value of telling China's environmental protection story and demonstrating China's action force. He believes that as a world-class museum with an annual number of 20 million visitors, the influence of the Forbidden City is heavyweight, which not only affects the vast number of Chinese audiences, but also brings more Chinese voices to the world. The practice of the Forbidden City Zero Waste Project connects tradition and modernity, past and future, better popularizes the relationship between man, nature and material, and realizes the value of doing more with less.

Wang Xudong, president of the Palace Museum, delivered a speech Courtesy of the Palace Museum

It is reported that at this climate conference, the forbidden city zero waste project "Fu Niu resignation old waste recycling sculpture", "forbidden city zero waste cultural creation" and "forbidden city compost flower bed" and other advocacy actions were broadcast in the form of documentaries in the China Enterprise Pavilion, showing the international audience the vitality of coping with climate change and the combination of traditional Chinese culture.

Yan Hongbin, vice president of the Palace Museum, shared the active and rich zero-waste actions of the Staff of the Palace Museum in the past two years, from optimizing the comprehensive construction of infrastructure such as garbage classification, to strengthening the publicity and advocacy of zero-waste training and CD-ROM actions, and steadily promoting the work related to "zero-waste office" and "zero-waste tour" in stages and steps, so that "zero-waste" has become a habit of everyone in a subtle way.

The reporter learned from the meeting that in the two years of the Forbidden City Zero Waste Project in 2020 and 2021, the average classification and recycling rate of the Palace Museum reached 45%, the per capita garbage reduction rate reached 89.2%, and the total carbon emission reduction per year was equivalent to the carbon sink absorbed by 7719 trees in a year. Directly led about 3,000 Forbidden City staff, 11 million visitors, and 40,000 tour guides to join the action of building a green Forbidden City.

In January this year, the open area of the Palace Museum was replaced with new classified garbage cans, and the number of garbage cans was reduced from 310 groups to 110 groups, a drop of nearly 2/3. As a partner of the Forbidden City Zero Waste Project, Zhuang Weimin, professor of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, shared the main findings of the "Research Report on the Behavior Pattern and Environmental Quality Improvement Project of the Forbidden City", which carried out environmental behavior research on the visiting behavior of the visitors to the Forbidden City, and provided scientific basis and work suggestions for the "zero waste tour".

Professor Liu Hongli of the College of Resources, Environment and Tourism of Capital Normal University analyzed the continuous influence of the Forbidden City from the perspectives of history and tourism.

At the meeting, outstanding project personnel and employees were also commended and encouraged, and trophies with the "zero waste" logo and environmentally friendly cultural and creative souvenirs developed and produced by discarded plastic bottles in the Forbidden City were awarded to them.

At the end of the summary meeting, the Palace Museum and Vanke Public Welfare Foundation announced that the two sides have reached the next stage of cooperation intentions, and will continue to work together for five years to further deepen and solidly implement zero-waste practice and jointly promote the construction of a green Forbidden City. (End)