LHASA－In less than two months, a newly opened minimarket in a remote village in Shigatse city, in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, has developed a core clientele. "Trash for cash" is the secret behind its success. Villagers can purchase goods with used cartons and drink bottles.

Early one morning, Drukhyun, the first secretary of Chumik village, arrived to check its inventory. "More and more people are coming to redeem goods, and we need to replenish stocks in a timely fashion," Drukhyun said.

The market wasn't warmly received in the beginning, until it began to target students.

News began to spread about the program after children started trading recyclables. Now, more than 100 villagers have redeemed commodities with a market value of over 5,100 yuan ($801). It also provides jobs for four residents who once lived under the poverty line, each of whom earn 3,000 yuan a month.

Tenzin Drolma is responsible for counting and weighing goods.

"I'm very grateful for having such an interesting and stable job. Local residents are highly motivated, and I'm pretty busy every day," Tenzin Drolma said.

Since a regulation on garbage sorting was announced in November 2020 in Lhasa, the regional capital, the low carbon lifestyle has caught on.

In another green supermarket in Lhasa's Karma Kunsang subdistrict, the shelves are crammed with edible oil, detergent, toothpaste and other daily commodities. The products are only available by redeeming points. One kilogram of plastic garbage can be exchanged for 13 points while 1 kg of cartons is worth of five points.

Sonam Dorje arrived early with a big sack of waste paper. He redeemed it for 16 points, which he used to get a bag of salt. "I used to throw paper away. Now, I can redeem it at the market," Sonam Dorje said.

Technology has also made the low-carbon lifestyle smarter and cleaner. In a community in Lhasa's Chengguan district, intelligent recycling bins can calculate the weight of items deposited and upload the points to cards held by residents.

"When the trash bin is full, it will automatically remind cleaning staff to empty it," said Pendran, director of the district's waste sorting office. Pendran added Chengguan has built 220 garbage recycling stations and will install more to perfect the system.