Chen Xiuzheng spent 15 yuan ($2.40) to have her two pots of nianju (New Year's potted oranges) and a big peach blossom branch carried out of her home on Wednesday morning.

"I buy the flowers before Spring Festival every year and have them dumped after the festival," said the 55-year-old housewife, who lives in a fifth-floor apartment in a housing estate in Guangzhou's Haizhu district.

"They are too heavy for me to carry from my home to the estate's waste collection center when my children have left home for work," she added.