New regulations raise environmental standards for China's manufacturing industry. E-waste, containing various toxic and hazardous substances, has become a global environmental problem. According to the "2014 Global E-waste Monitor" released by the United Nations University, 41.8 million tons of e-waste were generated globally in 2014, of which China generated 6 million tons, accounting for 14.3%, a significant amount. Taking mobile phones as an example, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that 560 million mobile phones were shipped in the Chinese market in 2016. Industry experts predict that the number of mobile phones replaced annually in China may reach 400 to 500 million in the next few years, while the accumulated amount of discarded mobile phones has already reached about 1 billion. These abandoned products pose a huge threat to the environment. Soon, China's electronics industry will face new environmental regulatory pressures. According to the implementation plan of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system issued by the State Council of China, government departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection are required to submit work plans for the recycling and disposal of electrical and electronic products by the end of 2017. The State Council also proposed that by 2025, China will have basically perfected the EPR (Environmental, Procurement, and Recycling) system for key product categories, achieved "significant progress" in product eco-design, and ensured that at least half of waste products are properly recycled and reused. The new EPR system defines four environmental responsibilities for producers: eco-design, use of recycled materials, proper recycling, and enhanced information disclosure. The first two aim to reduce the environmental footprint of products at the source, while the latter two aim to make producers responsible for the traceability and recycling of products throughout their entire lifecycle. The first batch of key products to implement EPR includes four categories: electrical and electronic products, automobiles, lead-acid batteries, and beverage packaging. The new EPR system aims to improve China's existing system for recycling waste electronic products. Previously, China promulgated the "Circular Economy Promotion Law" in 2008, which proposed the principles of reducing resource consumption and waste generation during production, distribution, and consumption, and that producers be responsible for the environmental footprint of products throughout their entire lifecycle, but did not propose any operational management regulations. In 2009, China introduced the operational "Regulations on the Management of Recycling and Disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products," which included a series of systems still in use today, such as a catalog system for waste electrical and electronic products, an electronic product disposal fund system, and a licensing system for disposal enterprises. However, these regulations only focused on standardizing the recycling and disposal process and did not attempt to drive improvements in the production and design stages. The new EPR system is the first to incorporate the control of the environmental footprint of a product's entire lifecycle into practical operating procedures, from raw material selection and product design to recycling and disposal. Furthermore, the EPR system aims to explore new ways to promote the formal recycling of electronic waste. For example, it proposes for the first time the establishment of an electronic product recycling mechanism based on an internet-based business model, encouraging consumers to use formal channels rather than randomly discarding or selling their products to informal waste recyclers. Effectively combining market mechanisms with the public service of waste recycling to create new recycling channels that align with consumer habits is the reform direction initiated by the EPR system. In fact, a number of online electronic waste recycling platforms are already exploring formal and market-oriented new models, such as Banana Peel, Ala Environmental Protection Network, Recycling Brother, Xianyu, and AiRecycle. The government is striving to promote the widespread adoption of formal recycling and processing because most of China's electronic waste currently bypasses formal channels and ends up in the hands of unlicensed recyclers and processors. According to a survey by the China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute, in 2015, 86% of waste electronic products were recycled through informal channels. The government has strict qualification licenses and total quantity controls for electronic waste processing companies; currently, only 109 companies have obtained processing licenses from the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Several experts told China Dialogue that because a large number of waste products are collected by unregulated small factories and street vendors, formal processing companies are simply operating at a loss, with a large proportion of their equipment running idle. The relationship between formal and informal recycling and processing is a rather thorny issue currently facing policy. If the scavenging portion is not controlled, the system will be built in vain, as no waste will be collected. However, whether simply depriving scavengers of their livelihood is feasible remains a complex question. Source: Chinadialogue (2017-06-05) (Compiled by PIDC)
