The Significance of Restrictions on Waste Import in Promoting Green Development in China

Abstract

Since its reform and opening up, China's economy has been developing rapidly, but at the same time, China's resources and environment have been increasingly seriously exhausted and damaged. There have been many world-famous public nuisance incidents in developed countries however, pollution caused by solid waste (i.e., garbage) is no less harmful than these international public nuisances. For China, the problem of solid waste import is especially serious and has become a nightmare for the development of environmental protection. The treatment of foreign waste import is an important fundamental approach for China to realize economic transition and promote the expansion of international trade. This paper studies and analyzes the harms of imported waste, explores the practical problems and difficulties in the treatment of imported foreign waste in China and provides a breakthrough concept of green development to promote the expansion of international trade and economic transition by placing a restriction or even ban on foreign waste import. To protect its ecological environment, China has accelerated the process of institutionalizing foreign waste import and economic transition, improved the legislation and law enforcement mechanisms for the treatment of waste import, and encouraged public participation in economic transition and environmental protection. The concepts of waste import restriction and green development provide an important reference for the world.

The impact of metal waste imports on industrial wastewater discharge in China

“…To date, there has been considerable research on solid waste and environmental pollution. Many researchers believe that solid waste has a negative impact on environmental protection and exacerbates environmental pollution (Li and Chen, 2019). Various countries or regions directly bury solid waste, such as plastic and waste paper, polluting soil and groundwater (Vasanthi et al, 2008;Chae and An, 2018), whereas others incinerate them, which pollutes the air (Ni et al, 2016;Verma et al, 2016).…”

Supervision behaviours of customs supervisors on solid waste import in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

“…The SWIs are counteractive to the construction of ecological civilization. The environmental problem caused by SWIs has become an ordeal for environmental protection in the PRC (Li and Chen, 2019). For lacking of waste handling protocols, public safety standards, proper equipment, etc., both the ISW and the harmful substances carried by SWIs may endanger workers' health.…”

“…Waste management (WM) is one of the key challenges the world currently faces (Tan et al, 2018). The People's Republic of China (PRC)'s solid waste (SW) imports (SWIs) started in the 1980s (Li and Chen, 2019), and soon became the biggest destination for recyclable wastes in world markets (Kellenberg, 2012). Since 1992, the PRC has imported 106 million tonnes (Mt) of plastic waste, which accounts for 45.1% of the world cumulative imports (Brooks et al, 2018).…”