A village in suburban Hangzhou is being held out as an exemplar of progress in promoting responsible waste sorting in the countryside.

In December the village of Gaocheng ranked top in a monthly competition among 24 villages and communities of Dinglan subdistrict, said the village head, Yu Jianguo. Seven months earlier Gaocheng had been a straggler at the other end of the pack.

In June the village launched a system of incentives to help villagers cultivate the habit of good waste handling.

Gaocheng, about 20 kilometers north of downtown Hangzhou, has 204 households and a population of 895.

In front of each of those households now stand two garbage receptacles, a green one for perishables and a gray one for anything else.

Every day after dinner volunteering supervisors check whether the rubbish has been properly sorted, something that makes the job of those who collect the trash early the next day easier.