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China is going ahead with a total ban on solid waste imports, with the order coming into effect early next year, according to Chinese authorities.
The ban was underlined in a joint statement on Wednesday by the country’s environment and trade ministries, as well as the National Development and Reform Commission and the customs administration.
Under the ban, the ecology and environment ministry will no longer issue solid waste import licenses, the statement said.
Xiao Jianjun, CEO of Guoheng Plastic Technology in the southern city of Dongguan, applauded the move, saying it was good for the waste processing industry.
“It sets out clear guidelines and specifications that companies must follow to promote environmental protection,” Xiao said.
The ban is the latest in a series of policies introduced by China in recent years to tackle the mountain of pollution from imported waste.
In July 2017, the State Council introduced new rules prohibiting the importation of “foreign garbage,” stopping the import of four categories of solid waste, including plastic waste. Then, in mid-2018, China announced that it would end all foreign solid waste imports by the end of 2020.
Before the bans, imports of such wastes had increased in China.
In March 2018, the then Environment Minister Li Ganjie said that some 20 years earlier, the country imported between 4 and 4.5 million tons of solid waste.
“Twenty years later, the volume of solid waste has increased to 45 million tons,” Li said.
But the tide has turned.
According to customs data, imports of solid waste from China, including plastic, waste paper and metal, were cut by about half in 2018. And imports of plastic waste have almost completely stopped.
In the wake of the bans, many Chinese companies in the industry went abroad to set up factories to handle the initial stages of waste processing.
Xiao said that he looked for new suppliers abroad and established new factories in Malaysia.
“Now the waste has to be processed abroad and transformed from solid waste into reusable raw materials before it can be imported. Before there were no restrictions and any garbage could be imported,” he said.
But that didn’t happen without a lot of pain.
“The painful period was in 2016 and 2017 and the entire industry was in jeopardy,” he said.
“Then (the pain) slowly eased, as we asked our upstream providers to do better to meet national standards.
“But the original suppliers and the old industrial chain could no longer function. So we have to find suppliers again and the whole industry has been through this painful period.”
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Mao Da, CEO of Shenzhen Zero Waste, a Shenzhen-based environmental NGO, said cleaning up pollution caused by imported waste could take years and be expensive.
“China’s policy has set an example for the global waste trade and cross-border transfer of pollution, so that developing countries will not easily become the garbage dumps of developed countries,” he said.
“Only when developing countries realize the problems and adopt effective national legislation and controls will they be able to break the cycle and stop this unfair trade.
“We cannot just trust the conscience of developed countries or international treaties, which are very weak and cannot impose substantial restrictions (on polluters).”
Du Huanzheng, director of the Circular Economy Research Institute at Tongji University in Shanghai, said China’s solid waste ban met with strong international resistance when it was introduced, particularly from the United States “because the United States does not have an industrial chain. for waste treatment “.
“Now they are building their own industrial waste disposal chain. Western countries must take their environmental responsibility, not transfer it to developing countries,” Du said.
He said there had been economic costs to China as a result of the import bans, including higher trade costs, disruptions in the supply of raw materials and a decrease in local tax revenue.
But there were environmental benefits and pressure on the industry to add value to its products.
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