Milestone passed on green development path: China Daily editorial

The prevention and control of solid waste pollution is an important part of the country's efforts to realize green development. President Xi Jinping has pointed out on a number of occasions that the prohibition on imports of solid waste is a landmark measure for the construction of an ecological civilization.

China's willingness to import solid waste in the past originated from economic necessity. The practice has come to an end as the country seeks to remodel its growth pattern and embark on a path of green development.

The country has had an all-around ban in place on imports of solid waste since Jan 1, which effectively means that "the days when developed countries could take us as a junkyard are gone and will never return", as Huang Runqiu, the Chinese ecology and environment minister, said at a State Council Information Office news briefing on Wednesday.

It was in the 1980s when reform and opening-up had just begun to unleash the country's industrial potential that the country started importing solid-state waste that could be used as raw materials. Over the last 40 years, China was the final destination of millions of tonnes of unwanted electronic products, waste plastic and paper, and scrap metal from developed countries, which was often haphazardly sorted and treated. Plastic, metal and paper recycled from the overseas waste were very popular with the domestic manufacturing and construction industries. Such imports served the country well in a time when there was under-supply of resources.

Yet alongside the recycling of useful materials there arose the widely deplored phenomenon of "foreign trash" imports, which ballooned into a gigantic gray industry, and gradually the country became the leading destination for the solid waste the developed countries were unwilling to deal with themselves.

The harmful downside of importing all this solid waste has been pollution, which has become increasingly conspicuous in places processing such waste. Now that the country has placed greater emphasis on addressing industrial pollution and upgrading its industrial structure, such imports have grown out of sync with the national development strategies.

In a 2018 joint resolution, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council proposed to "basically achieve" zero imports of solid waste by the end of 2020. The revised law on the prevention and treatment of environmental pollution by solid-state waste published in April 2020 stipulates explicitly that "the State would realize zero imports of solid-state waste in a step-by-step manner".

And it should not be forgotten that it is simply counter-intuitive to import solid waste when there are mountains of locally produced solid waste to be dealt with.

As domestic consumption upgrades and domestic waste accumulates, properly treating locally produced waste presents both a challenge and opportunity for the domestic recycling industry. But it would certainly be a boost to the country's efforts to achieve environmental wellness if the recycling industry can get to grips with it and promote a circular economy.