Chinese Legislators Debate E-Waste Legislation

Drafting of new Chinese legislation governing the disposal of electronic garbage has been bogged down and delayed by disagreements between manufacturers, government agencies and consumers groups.

Chinese authorities began the process of legislating the management of electronic scrap three years ago, but have still not yet been able to complete a draft of the law. The cause of the delay has been a disagreement between manufacturers, government, and consumer groups on how to split the bill for the disposal of these products. The five product sectors to likely be most affected are computers, washing machines, refrigerators, televisions and air-conditioners.

"The new legislation we are drafting is very all encompassing and so it has been quite difficult to coordinate among manufacturers, government agencies, and consumers," said Zhang Youliang, assistant chief engineer with the China Home Electronic Appliance Research Institute. "The legislation aims to make manufacturers the ones chiefly responsible for handling the recycling of discarded electronics products. The manufacturers are afraid that this added responsibility would greatly raise their costs. There hasn't been a definite schedule set yet for the release of this legislation."

Although drafting of the legislation has been slowed, Chinese authorities have not de-emphasized the matter. The drafting of legislation governing the disposal of electronic wastes has already been designated one of the most important and urgent tasks for China's National Development and Reform Commission to focus on during 2004. Earlier this year, the city of Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong Province, was selected as the experimental city for electronic waste recycling in China, while eastern China's Zhejiang Province was selected as the country's experimental province for electronic waste recycling.

In addition, China's largest electronics garbage processing plant, Citiraya Environment Industry Co., Ltd, has also already commenced construction with a total investment of $54 million in the city of Wuxi. The first phase of this project involves a construction area of 33,000 square meters and will be able to process 30,000 tons electronic garbage annually. Completion of the second phase will push the facilities processing capacity to 60,000 tons per year. Interfax