Solid waste imports ban shows resolve to protect environment

IMPORTS OF ENVIRONMENTALLY HAZARDOUS SOLID WASTE will end before the end of the year, and imports of solid waste that can be replaced by domestic resources will end by 2019, the State Council, China's Cabinet, announced on Thursday. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

In fact, China notified the World Trade Organization 10 days earlier that it would take emergency measures to prohibit imports of 24 kinds of solid waste by the end of the year, including imports of household plastic waste, vanadium slag, unsorted waste paper and waste textile raw materials.

The United Nations Environment Programme issued the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal in 1989 to reduce the movements of hazardous waste, specifically from developed to less-developed countries, and ensure the environmentally sound management of waste as close as possible to its source.