The 13th Five Year Plan policy document issued by China’s government includes goals and policies designed to recycle more end-of-life items in that nation, according to several speakers who presented at the 2016 CMRA (China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metal Branch) Annual Convention in early November.
Chinese government programs included in the plan, such as its Internet Plus initiative and the Circular Economy Plan, offer new opportunities for the recycling sector, said Ma Rong of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).
Internet Plus funding may be available “to support smart recovery” of discarded and scrap materials, said Ma, while the Circular Economy Plan offers ways to “enhance research and development and the commerialisation” of recycling technologies, he indicated.
Gao Ning of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said his agency is working to “establish a catalog” of the latest technology in the environmental sector. He said the agency intends to get Chinese universities involved in the effort to help “encourage the increased adoption” of such technologies.
Ling Jiang, who is part of the MEP’s Solid Waste and Chemicals Management Center, said Japan provided a positive example and had done “an outstanding job” of creating and hitting targets when it comes to scrap recycling and secondary metals production.
Shong Fushan, who is an officer with the CMRA and the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNIA), said although China is importing less nonferrous scrap as a percentage of its feedstock needs, its “collection system is not comprehensive.”
As one way to boost domestic scrap collection, the CMRA and CNIA announced at the convention the creation of a Metal Recycling Day to be promoted throughout the nation. The announcement was celebrated with the unveiling of a large globe made with scrap metal. The date of Metal Recycling Day in 2017 had not yet been established at the time of the convention.
The 2016 CMRA Annual Convention was 7-9 November at the Dongfang Hotel in Guangzhou, China.