Request a Demo
The Chinese government has been endeavoring to improve the management of hazardous wastes. The latest version of the Inventory of Hazardous Wastes was implemented on Aug 1st, 2016 and expanded the scope of hazardous wastes by adopting the whole Inventory of Hazardous Chemicals published by the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) (click here to see whether your chemicals are hazardous wastes). The expansion of scope means an increased demand on the capability of enterprises and organizations to handle hazardous wastes and on the supervisory and enforcement capacities of authorities.
The State Council published the Measures on the Management of Operation Permits of Hazardous Wastes in 2004 and started to manage hazardous waste handling enterprises using a permit system. Up to the end of 2016, there were 2149 enterprises that had obtained the permit and the total handling capacity reached 64.7 million tons per year.
However, with the development of the wastes handling industry the measures are no longer adequate. For example, according to the Measures, enterprises with the permit for collection of hazardous wastes can only collect waste mineral oils and waste nickel-cadmium batteries. This limited scope hinders the collection of other hazardous wastes. What's more, some articles in the Measures even conflict with some requirements of the newly revised Law on Prevention and Treatment of Solid Wastes Pollution. So on Dec 22nd, 2017, the Ministry of Environmental Protection published a draft revision of the Measures and sought opinions from the public.
The main amendments to the Measures include:
A new permit for utilization of hazardous wastes is introduced. Now there are 3 kinds of permits, which are the comprehensive operation permit that allows enterprises to collect, store, utilize, and treat/disposal the hazardous wastes; the utilization operation permit that allows enterprises to collect, store, and utilize the hazardous wastes; and the collection operation permit that only allows enterprises to collect the hazardous wastes.
The scope of collection of hazardous wastes is expanded to waste mineral oils, waste nickel-cadmium batteries, waste lead batteries, and other hazardous wastes that are approved by the environmental protection authorities over the provincial level. The expanded scope aims to increase the efficiency of wastes collection and reduce the volume of waste released into the environment.
The review and approval of the permit applications are simplified. But if enterprises violate certain articles, the authorities would have the power to refuse the application to renew the permits.
Some conflicting articles are revised to align with other higher laws, including the penalties and the definitions of some terms.
The consultation period will end on Jan 25th, 2018. Enterprises could submit feedback via MEP’s email address at [email protected].
