Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/money-wealth/article/2147219/china-launches-fresh-campaign-against-trash-smuggling
China/ Money & Wealth

China launches fresh campaign against trash smuggling

Move comes after Beijing stopped imports of many types of foreign waste last year, much of it bound for recycling plants

A file picture of a recycling centre in California. Photo: EPA-EFE

China launched a fresh crackdown on Tuesday against trash smuggling from overseas in Beijing’s latest move to curtail the inflow of foreign rubbish and strengthen its “war on pollution”.

China’s customs administration announced the effort on its Weibo social media feed, but provided no details other than to say the campaign would be “huge”.

The effort comes at a time when the authorities around China have been intensifying actions against illegal trash imports as part of nationwide plans to clean up the environment and move the economy up the global value chain.
A file picture taken in 2011 of workers loading imported waste metal at a port in Taizhou in Zhejiang province. Photo: China Foto Press
A file picture taken in 2011 of workers loading imported waste metal at a port in Taizhou in Zhejiang province. Photo: China Foto Press

China told the World Trade Organisation last year it would stop accepting imports of 24 types of foreign waste by the end of the year and that it would phase out shipments of other waste products, including those readily available from domestic sources, by the end of 2019.

The move has thrown the global recycling industry into turmoil and left domestic recyclers to cope with raw material shortages.

The General Administration of Customs said in early April it had seized 110,000 tonnes of smuggled solid waste this year and arrested 52 people.

China arrested 259 people for smuggling foreign waste last year, with some criminal gangs accused of taking containers of electronic waste from Hong Kong to North Korea and then smuggling them across the border into China in order to circumvent restrictions.