Introducing a new and integral EPR system in China:
Case study of e-waste in HangZhou city
王 奇俊＊

氷鉋 揚四郎 ヤバール ヘルムート
筑波大学生命環境科学研究科

1. Introduction
With the rapid development of electronic information industry and the continuous improvement ofpeople‟s living standard, the quantity of e-waste keeps growing and becoming the fastest-growing solid
waste in the twenty first century of the world including China.
Nowadays e-waste has become a serious problem in China both in terms of quantity and toxicity,
exacerbated by the growing adoption and shorter lifespan of electronic products. Obviously, treatment ofelectronic waste has been a problem urgently needing to be solved and that cannot be ignored anymore.
2. The situation of WEEE recycling in China
Owing to lack of legislation, recycling often occurs informally in China. The traditional WEEE flow
system in China, shown in Fig. 1, Most of the E-waste in China goes to family-run workshop or otherillegal E-waste disposal enterprises as well as secondhand market by individual collectors. Part of oldproducts that goes to secondhand market will be repaired and resold to consumers who have demand in.
And the rest will go to informal recycling sectors with high revenue in return.

Fig.1 The traditional of WEEE recycling in China
They can provide high price to collect E-waste is because they can reduce cost more than formal
recycling sectors. In order to reduce cost, they usually disassemble e-waste in the fastest and most direct
way to recycle the valuable components, such as stripping of metals in open acid baths, removal ofelectronic components from printed circuit boards by heating over a grill, and recovering metals by burning
cables and parts.
These practices have caused severe pollution releases to the surrounding soil and groundwater in
informal recycling areas. It is harmful not only for the people but also for the environment and the lack of aclear waste management policy has made the situation more serious.
To cope with the challenge of financial crisis by expanding consumption demand, a pilot project named“Implementation Measures of the „trade old for new‟ of Home Appliances” have been launched since June2009, which specifies that consumers who trade their old home appliances will receive 10% rebate of theoriginal product price. The Government will offer retailers the subsidy for this rebate. And the collection
enterprises will also receive the Government subsidy for transporting these old products. The total
government subsidy will be up to US$300 million throughout the country. The WEEE flow with “Trade oldfor new” system in China is shown in Fig.2.
Since this project brings about not only a striking effect of market stimulation but also a great influenceof post-consumer WEEE collection, by December of 2010, there were 30.026 million sets of new productsold and 31.109 million sets of old product collected.

Fig.2 WEEE flow with “Trade old for new” system in China
3. Japan’s EPR system and the proposed new EPR system of China
Japan‟s EPR system has achieved remarkable success in collection and recycling of e-waste. According
to the Home Appliance Recycling Law of Japan, retailers and local governments are in charge of the waste
collection while manufacturers or importers must recycle the wastes. Consumers pay a fee for thecollection, transport and recycling of the e-wastes when they discard those appliances.
In China, because of the average per capita income, cheap labor, and lack of environmental awareness,
it is unrealistic to make consumers pay for their discarded products directly. On the contrary, they usuallysell the e-waste for informal recycling explained above. Based on the Japan‟s experience and current
situation in China this study proposes a new and comprehensive EPR system that illustrated in Fig. 3.
In this system, the Government provides funding to Manufacturers or importers for EPR systemthrough the collected tax from them. Manufacturers will establish or commission formal recycling centers.
And because of the great impact of both economy and e-waste collection, the “Implementation Measures ofthe „trade old for new‟ of Home Appliances” will continue to be implemented as before and expand to thewhole country.
Based on this system consumers can pay part of the new product with the discarded one through “tradeold for new” system or can sell directly to individual collectors. Individual collectors can either sell the ewastes to secondhand market sector for repair and resell or sell them to the established central collection
centers. The central collection centers, in charge of the local government, will also receive the wastes fromretailers or secondhand market and transport them to formal recycling centers established by Manufacturers
for recycling.

Fig.3 The new EPR system
4. Conclusion and Future work
Hangzhou locates on the Hangzhou Bay 180 kilometers southwest of Shanghai in Eastern China. It isthe capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province, the provincial center in economy, culture, science andeducation and is one of cities that have highest economic growth rates in China.
The situation of WEEE recycling in Hangzhou is as same as other city of China. With the rapiddevelopment of local economy, electronic industry and demand of e-product in Hangzhou, lifespan ofelectronic products are becoming shorter and shorter. That means more WEEE will be produced.Table.1
shows the Trends in Home Appliances ownership in Hangzhou.
Table.1 Trends in Home Appliances ownership in Hangzhou (units per hundred households)
Product
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Washing machine(set)Refrigerator (set)

94.17

96.50

95.73

89.80

94.60

100.0099.50

100.82

98.15

100.30TV (set)182.67

180.67181.28167.27173.96Air conditioner (set)183.33187.83

191.30195.53203.87PC (set)

74.50

74.50

82.10

81.74

86.87

Source: Hangzhou Statistical Yearbook, 2010
There is a large number of manufacturers and importers of home appliance or other e-product, as well
as secondhand market of a certain scale in Hangzhou. Moreover there is a large number of floating
population individuals who live on the business of waste recycling including old home appliance collection.
Most of this population is from other depressed area of China. They could play an important role in thisnew system and make the greatest contribution to it. Besides, Hangzhou is also the pilot city of the project

“Implementation Measures of the „trade old for new‟ of Home Appliances”. With this background thisresearch will use Hangzhou city as a case study.
This system aims to take WEEE to the formal recycling sectors from informal ones. The Successful
Experience of “trade old for new” system shows us that the key point is economic benefit. If consumers canget more benefit from formal sectors than informal sectors. No doubt this system will work well.
So the countermeasure is to pay individual collectors and secondhand market a financial incentive (orfixed price) to turn in old product or unusable equipment and parts higher than that offered by informal
recyclers. This incentive price will come from government funding, which is actually the tax collected frommanufacturers or importers. It may result in that they pass on the increase in costs to the customer. The
setting of the tax and incentive prices must be done carefully to ensure that manufacturers or importers
would like to accept and the individual collectors as well as secondhand market will prefer to use theformal sector but not so high so as to needlessly increase the cost of the system.
Introducing this new system in Hangzhou city and discussing how to set the tax and incentive price willbe the future subject.