Experts seek more incentives to promote classification and recycling

China needs to introduce more incentives for enterprises and the public to promote waste classification and recycling, according to international experts.

Much attention also needs to be paid to public advocacy to enable attitudes toward production and consumption to change to help with implementation of management policies and measures, they said.

Agi Veres, country director of the United Nations Development Programme in China, said the country imported 45 million metric tons of solid waste in 2017. One of the reasons for these imports is that the waste brought in from developed countries is better classified, she said.

By the end of this year, the country will ban imports of all types of waste that is produced domestically. The ban will reduce the potential pollution from imported waste, but may result in a shortage for companies using this waste in their production processes in the short term.

Measures are needed to help these companies to continue production, creating opportunities for the development of the domestic recycling industry, Veres said.

She said public advocacy should accompany the measures the country plans to take to manage waste. “Without good public advocacy, it will be difficult to enforce some of the new policies and measures,” she added.

China needs to advocate a shift in people’s attitude toward production and consumption to ensure that waste is handled responsibly and used properly. “Usually, that’s the hardest part,” she said.

Laws and regulations can be imposed on enterprises, but it can be difficult to change the culture and the mindset of the public, she said.

“I really believe it’s only a matter of putting the right incentive in place. The incentive needs to be at the local government level, the enterprise level,” she said.

Scott Vaughan, president and CEO of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an independent international think tank, said China’s decision to ban waste imports will make a positive contribution outside of the country.

Challenges will result from the ban, as some waste will go to countries that are poorly equipped to handle it. However, in the long run, this will force developed nations that export waste to address their own capacity for garbage recycling, he said.

China may face some challenges as it builds the system and infrastructure needed for waste classification and recycling. But the attention it has given to this is a very important step in terms of addressing domestic waste management issues, Vaughan said.

He added that the private business sector could play an important role in promoting recycling if it designs products that are easier to dismantle, to reuse, or makes goods that can be repaired.

Vaughan also called for consumers to pay more attention to durability when they buy products. Everyone is concerned with promoting recycling as “every day, people are throwing things out”, he said.