At Pengshui Miao and Tujia autonomous county in Chongqing municipality, 72-year-old Yang Guanghua keeps his kitchen waste such as fruit peels and discarded vegetable leaves and turns them into a green treasure.

Yang's village — Yangjiaxincun village in Lijia community under Sangzhe township — is home to 117 households and is a centuries-old Miao ethnic group settlement. Many villagers there make eco-friendly enzymes from kitchen waste like fruits and vegetables.

"Look, brown sugar, fruit peels and water — mix them, put them in a barrel and you can get eco-friendly enzymes," Yang said, while opening the lid of a plastic barrel and stirring it with his hand, a fragrant fruity aroma wafting out.

"Don't underestimate this enzyme — it's quite useful!" Yang added, noting that initially, he too thought it was just a community effort to reduce kitchen waste by encouraging better waste management and environmental protection.

However, after making the enzyme himself and using it in daily life, he was full of praise and even began collecting discarded fruits outdoors to make more enzymes.

"This enzyme can be poured into toilets to eliminate odors, sprayed on crops to kill pests, and added to soil to prevent compaction and improve its quality," Yang said.

The change in this ethnic minority village in such a remote area can be traced back to a local governance initiative implemented five years ago.

In 2019, Yangjiaxincun village launched its "zero-pollution village "project, becoming one of the first communities in Chongqing to start the initiative.

"The basis of building a 'zero-pollution village' starts with waste sorting," said Yang Junfei, Party secretary of Lijia community, adding that a working group of village leaders and Party members visited each household to teach waste sorting by hand and explain the initiative to foster collective efforts.

On the resident side, every household was equipped with two bins for sorting recyclable and non-recyclable waste, with volunteers setting an example to encourage environmental awareness and cultivate eco-friendly habits.

"For non-recyclable, easily degradable plant-based kitchen waste, we encouraged villagers to make eco-friendly enzymes," said Yang Junfei.

Noting that building such a village is a complex project that cannot be achieved overnight, the Party secretary stressed that Lijia has empowered the initiative with five essential elements.

A "culture" element to enhance residents' sense of fulfillment and happiness, an "environmental" element to engage the villagers in active participation, an "ecological "element to explore natural farming methods to produce healthy agricultural products, an "income increase" element to turn ecological resources into income-generating opportunities, and a "talent" element to help guide environmental protection efforts.

"By boosting villagers' confidence in the development, we can ultimately create a real zero-pollution village," the Party secretary said.

As one of the 100 key counties for comprehensive rocky desertification control in China's karst areas, Pengshui has been restoring forest and grass vegetation over an area covering 3,437 square kilometers since 2011, making the county more beautiful.

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