This Day, That Year

Item from Dec 29, 1998, in China Daily: More than 10,000 abandoned motor vehicles, including police cars, were sent to Beijing’s Shougang Group to be melted down for scrap iron.

It is one of the important measures to reduce the capital’s pollution.

The country’s automobile industry has ushered in explosive growth since 2000, with car ownership rising to 205 million by June, the world’s largest.

According to an estimated deadline of 10 to 12 years, China will see more than 13 million scrapped cars in 2019. But the vehicle recycling sector is still at an early stage.

Last year, fewer than 1.8 million scrapped cars were recycled across the country. The overall rate was only 4 percent in 2013, far lower than 8 percent in developed countries, industry analysts said.

There are about 600 auto recycling companies nationwide, but most are small and lack policy support. In 2001, a regulation on vehicle recycling went into effect, and a draft amendment is underway.

For the booming new energy vehicle sector, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is exploring regulatory and management systems for battery recycling.

Minister

Miao Wei said recently that an extended producer responsibility regime will be established to make automakers responsible for recycling.

China’s total production and sales of these vehicles are expected to reach 5 million by 2020. As the average lifespan of batteries is about five to eight years, the country will see the number of redundant batteries hit about 250,000 metric tons in 2020, almost 20 times that of 2016. Batteries, if not being disposed of properly, will cause serious environmental pollution.