China: additional import prohibitions for 32 types of solid waste

On 19 April 2018, China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that China will ban imports of an additional 16 types of solid waste from December 2018 and a further 16 types of solid waste from December 2019 in order to further standardise the management of solid waste imports, and to prevent, control and reduce environmental pollution.

Sixteen types of solid wastes, including industrial plastic waste, waste hardware and electrical appliances, waste electric motors, waste vessels and other floating structures and baled automobiles, etc. will be banned from import as from 31 December 2018, as stated in the MEE online announcement (Full list HERE).

Together with the prohibitions that entered into force at the end of 2017 this would mean that all plastic waste and scrap, both industrial arisings and post-consumer scrap, will be prohibited to export to China by December 2018.

The additional prohibitions on end-of-life goods, machinery and equipment containing copper will surprise many in the business.
Another sixteen types of waste and scrap, including stainless steel scrap, titanium scrap, wood waste, etc. will be banned as from 31 December 2019 (Full list HERE).

BIR notes that China is the world’s largest importer of recyclable materials, and that after the 1st January 2018 ban on 24 waste and scrap items, these additional 32 import prohibitions, together with the very high quality thresholds in the Chinese scrap standards, will put great pressure on the scrap processing capacity of the global recycling industry outside China.

BIR members will be discussing these issues in detail during the upcoming World Recycling Convention in Barcelona (28-30 May 2018) and more specifically at the International Trade Council meeting on Tuesday 29 May at 16.15 hrs.