Managing e-waste in China: Policies, pilot projects and alternative approaches

As the largest exporter of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and importer of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE, also called e-waste) around the world, China plays a key role in the global life cycle of electronics. This paper reviews the existing framework for e-waste management in China including regulatory policies and pilot projects. The Chinese government has been active in creating a legislative and institutional framework to realize e-waste recycling. Pilot projects have been established with the intent to test new formal systems to replace informal recycling. These projects have usually failed to collect sufficient e-waste, mainly because informal recyclers pay consumers for their e-waste and pilot projects do not. Challenges to implementing e-waste reuse/recycling systems particular to the Chinese situation are analyzed and two alternative policy approaches are proposed to deal with these challenges. The first policy approach proposed is a system which shares financial responsibility among consumers, manufacturers and the government. The system includes a deposit returned to consumers as an incentive to turn in e-waste. The second proposal is, where appropriate, to include an e-waste channel which mixes informal and formal sectors, with the informal sector handling collection and reuse and the formal sector responsible for dismantling and recycling.