Recycling of Waste Electric and Electronic Products in China

Yu, Keli; Zhang, Heran; Liu, Yunong

doi:10.1007/978-981-15-8510-4_13

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…In general, China's WEEE management has undergone five stages, i.e., the primary stage, the nascent formal disassembly stage, the "exchanging old appliances for new" stage, the urban mining stage, and the current subsidy-plan stage. 66 Given China's booming carbon market, our findings on how to raise the profitability of WEEE recycling enterprises by selling carbon credits create new opportunities for policymakers to sustainably boom the WEEE recycling sector.…”

Section: ■ Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Trading in China Reduces the Dependence of Household Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Recycling on Government Subsidies

Zhang,

Song,

et al. 2023

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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China's enterprises of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling suffer from low profitability that is highly dependent on government subsidies. This low economic gain impedes the sustainable growth of China's WEEE-recycling sector and also adds to the government's financial burden. Prior life-cycle studies have approved the carbon reduction potentials or net carbon credit of recycling WEEE. However, policymakers fail to know whether the revenue from selling carbon credits can offset the government's financial subsidy. We performed life-cycle and costbenefit analyses for a case recycling enterprise that processes six categories of household appliances. The results show that the reduction potentials of greenhouse gases range from 930−3450 kgCO 2 e by recycling per ton of household appliances and materials substitution. The recycling enterprise would gain extra revenue ranging from 32 to 160 RMB per ton of appliance if the carbon credits were sold at China's current carbon price, i.e., 45−60 RMB tCO 2 e −1 . Recycling waste refrigerators exhibits the highest carbon revenue, offsetting 6−17% of the government's financial subsidy. Microcomputers, by contrast, indicate the lowest carbon revenue, equivalent to 1−3% of its highest government subsidy. For each household appliance category, when the carbon price reaches 270− 600 RMB tCO 2 e −1 , selling carbon credits can fully offset the government's financial subsidy. Constrained by the processing capacity of the case enterprise, optimizations for appliance-recycling composition contribute a 15−25% profit growth to the current economic gains. Interpreting the specific profit depends on the predefined scenarios of carbon price and the substitution rate of the regenerated materials for the virginal ones. Our findings show that raising the profitability of WEEE recycling enterprises through the carbon trading policy contributes to the sustainable growth of China's WEEE-recycling sector while alleviating the government's financial burden.

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Section: ■ Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%