China completely bans import of solid waste from 1st Jan 2021

Ministry of Ecology and Environment along with 3 three other Ministries of China announced the complete ban of import of solid waste from 01 Jan 2021.

In an effort to implement the amendment to “The Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Inducing Environmental Pollution Law of the P. R. C” on the import management of solid waste which came into force on 01 September 2020, the Chinese government announced the complete ban of import of solid waste from 01 Jan 2021.

As per Art. 115 of the Law, “Whoever, in violation of the provisions of this law, imports solid waste into China shall be ordered by the customs to return the solid waste and shall be fined not less than CNY 500,000 but not more than CNY 5,000,000. The carrier and the importer shall be jointly and severally liable for the return and disposal of the solid waste mentioned in the preceding paragraph”.

As per Art. 124 of the Law, “The solid waste refers to solid, semi-solid and gaseous articles and substances placed in containers that have lost their original usage value or have not lost their usage value but have been abandoned, as well as articles and substances included in the management of solid waste according to laws and administrative regulations, but it excludes the waste which is not harmful to public health and ecological safety after harmless processing, and meets the mandatory national product quality standards, or is not identified as solid waste according to the solid waste identification standards and procedures”

According to the circular, the garbage or solid waste generated during the ship’s normal operation is not regarded as imported waste, these regulations will not affect the disposal of ship’s garbage and solid sludge (operational waste) to contractors in Chinese port.

Following the above, owners should adopt relevant measures to verify whether a shipment belongs to the solid waste category before accepting the booking, including requesting the shipper/ client to submit exact cargo information, customs code and relevant licence of the shipment.

To remind, the Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Inducing Environmental Pollution Law of the P. R. C on the import management of solid waste covers:

1. It is forbidden to import solid waste in any way. It is forbidden to dump, stack and dispose solid waste from outside China.
2.  The Ministry of Ecology and Environment shall stop accepting or approving the application for import license of solid waste that can be used as raw materials under the category of restricted import; the import license of solid waste that can be used as raw material in the restricted import category issued in 2020 shall be used within the period of validity specified in the certificate in 2020, and shall automatically become invalid after the expiration of the period.
3. The solid waste generated by companies inside the special customs supervision areas and bonded supervision places (including bonded areas, comprehensive bonded areas and other customs special supervision areas, bonded logistics centres (A / B type), bonded warehouses and other bonded supervision places) that are not transported out of the country shall be managed in accordance with the relevant domestic solid waste regulations.
4. If it is necessary to be taken out of the zone for storage, utilization or disposal, it shall go through the relevant procedures with the administrative department of the local government of the local customs special supervision area and bonded supervision place, and the customs will no longer check the relevant approval documents.
5. Solid wastes resulting from the production of bonded maintenance and reclycling outside the customs special supervision areas and bonded supervision sites and not transported out of the country shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions in Point 3 above.

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