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An overview study on management and implementation of WEEE in China

  • Lien-Chieh Lee
    ,
  • Lili Zhang
    ,
  • Xi Chen
    ,
  • Shusheng Gui
    ,
  • Shaobo Zhou
  • Hubei Polytechnic University
Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Abstract

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which contains various valuable and harmful materials is an inevitable waste in modern society. In order to resolve the pollution problems associated with WEEE treatment, a WEEE management system has been established in China. The main role of importers and manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is to pay the treatment fees to facilitate the WEEE recycling in China. The announced treatment and subsidy fee is given by set, not by the weight of WEEE. There is no lesser green treatment fee for the producers which can produce environmentally friendly EEE in China. Also, the recovery of refrigerants from the foaming agent of refrigerators is not required in China. In total, 45 million sets of recycled WEEE were certified in 2020, a year that contains the most updated data. Among them, 48%, 14%, 20%, 10% and 8% are for TV, refrigerator, washing machine, computer and air conditioners, respectively. The spatial analysis indicates that the WEEE recycling activities are mainly concentrated on the mid-east and east regions of China. It also can be concluded that the certified amount of each province has higher positive correlation with provincial population than provincial GDP per capita and green recovery rate. It also clearly notes that the amount of recycled air conditioner is the lowest for each province. Thus, more effort should be conducted to increase the recycling of scrapped air conditioner in China.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 10285-10300 (16 pages)

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Environment, Development and Sustainability (Volume 25, Issue 9)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 03/06/2022
  • Published - 28/06/2022

Publication status

Published - 28/06/2022

ISSN

1387-585X

Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/626118
  • Scopus: 85132984511
  • PubMed: 35789746

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