Recently, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Urban Environmental Infrastructure" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions") issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other four ministries. In terms of improving the price and fee system, the "Guiding Opinions" proposed to fully implement the domestic waste charging system, promote the measurement and charging of garbage for non-resident users, and explore the charging of residential users by volume.

At present, the domestic waste disposal fees for residents in most cities in China are levied at a fixed rate. As early as 2018, the state has clearly proposed the measurement and charging of garbage. The relevant opinions of the National Development and Reform Commission proposed to improve the incentive mechanism for the classification and reduction of urban domestic waste, and implement measurement and differentiated charges for qualified residential users.

Professor Song Guojun, director of the Institute of Environmental Policy and Planning of Renmin University of China, said in an interview with Red Star News that the specific technology is not difficult, but the entire measurement and charging system is very complicated. It is a systematic project that needs to be carefully studied and standardized. The principle is to reflect social costs.

Residents in Jinniu District, Chengdu are sorting and disposing of garbage. Data map

Currently, most cities are levying fixed fees

The national level has proposed an incentive mechanism:Metered charges, differentiated charges

According to a Red Star News reporter, China has been trying to charge for garbage since the 1990s; in 2002, four ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on the Implementation of a Charging System for Urban Domestic Waste Treatment to Promote the Industrialization of Waste Treatment", and China has comprehensively levied garbage treatment fees. The notice requires that all government agencies, institutions and individual residents who generate domestic waste should pay domestic waste treatment fees in accordance with regulations. After that, various places have successively promulgated relevant local regulations and charging policies.

In 2020, the "Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste" was revised, and garbage treatment fees were officially included in the law. The law stipulates that local people's governments at or above the county level should establish a domestic waste treatment fee system in accordance with the principle of "generator pays".

In 2018, the national level clearly proposed a garbage metering charging model for the first time. In July of that year, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Opinions on Innovating and Improving the Pricing Mechanism to Promote Green Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), proposing to comprehensively establish a solid waste treatment fee mechanism that covers costs and is reasonably profitable, and to accelerate the establishment of an incentive and constraint mechanism that is conducive to promoting garbage classification and reduction, resource utilization, and harmless treatment; to establish and improve the charging mechanism for urban domestic waste treatment, and to explore the establishment of a rural garbage treatment fee system.

In order to improve the incentive mechanism for urban domestic waste classification and reduction, the "Opinions" require the active promotion of the reform of urban domestic waste treatment fee methods, the implementation of garbage metering charges for non-resident users, and the implementation of differentiated charges for classified garbage and mixed garbage, and the increase of mixed garbage charging standards; for qualified residential users, metering charges and differentiated charges are implemented to accelerate the promotion of garbage classification. Encourage the market-oriented operation of urban domestic waste collection, transportation, and treatment, which has formed a fully competitive link and implements negotiated pricing between the two parties.

Regarding "differentiated charges", Zhou Banxue, deputy director of the Price Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, once explained at a press conference of the National Development and Reform Commission that, specifically, for those who dispose of garbage in a classified manner, a lower charging standard can be appropriately implemented, and for those who do not dispose of garbage in a classified manner, a higher charging standard can be implemented.

At present, the residential garbage disposal fees in most cities in China are levied at a fixed rate. On December 30, 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Government-Priced Business Service Fee Catalog List (2022 Edition)", which involves the domestic garbage charges in 22 provinces. Among them, the residential garbage disposal fee in Guangdong Province can be as high as 21 yuan/household/month, while in Hunan Province, it is levied along with the water fee, 0.25~0.4 yuan per cubic meter.

The "Study and Suggestions on the Cost of Urban Domestic Waste Treatment" released by the Price and Cost Survey Center of the National Development and Reform Commission in 2020 introduced that among the 36 large and medium-sized cities, except Shenyang, Ningbo and Shanghai, 33 cities have formulated charging standards for residential domestic waste treatment fees. Among them, Changsha, Haikou and Urumqi are levied according to the water consumption coefficient method, Shenzhen is levied according to the amount of sewage discharged, and the other 28 cities are levied by household or person.

Charge standards for residential domestic waste disposal fees in some cities in China. Compiled by Industry Information Network

As for the charging method, the article introduces that it is mainly door-to-door collection and entrusted collection. For entrusted collection, it is generally entrusted to the neighborhood committee, property company, tax, industry and commerce, finance and other departments for collection and payment, or collected jointly with public utility fees such as water and gas fees.

The article points out that due to the generally low collection rate of garbage disposal fees and the large difference between the collection standards and the processing costs, the garbage disposal fees collected are difficult to cover the expenditures. Among the 36 large and medium-sized cities, except Shanghai, it is generally reflected that the revenue and expenditure are unbalanced and the financial subsidy pressure is relatively large.

Explorations in various places:

Pilot metering and differentiated charging, more garbage, more money

In fact, local governments have been exploring policies for metering and charging residents' domestic garbage.

The "Beijing Municipal Domestic Waste Management Regulations" implemented in Beijing in 2012 clearly stated that residents "will be charged more for more garbage and less for classified garbage", but the specific payment method still needs to be formulated by the municipal government.

In April 2021, the Yueqing Municipal Government of Zhejiang Province issued a document to adjust the charging standards for domestic garbage disposal. For residential users, we will explore the implementation of metered charging. For those who do not have the conditions for metering, the charging standard is 8 yuan per household per month for permanent residents and 6 yuan per household per month for temporary residents; for those who have the conditions for metering, the charging standard is 60 yuan per ton based on the amount of garbage generated. Low-income groups are exempt from domestic waste disposal fees.

In October 2021, Hubei Province issued the "Hubei Province Urban Domestic Waste Treatment Fee Management Measures", which proposed that areas with conditions can implement metered charging and differentiated charging, and the charging standard for mixed waste treatment should be significantly higher than the charging standard for classified waste treatment.

According to an article on the official website of the National Development and Reform Commission in October 2019, Shenzhen City selected property communities and commercial areas in Longhua District and Dapeng New District to carry out pilot work on volume-based charging and differentiated charging for garbage treatment.

The new "Shenzhen Domestic Waste Classification Management Regulations" implemented on September 1, 2020 authorizes the municipal government to gradually establish a charging system for garbage classification pricing and metered charging. In order to cooperate with this system, the regulations also proposed to explore the use of special garbage bags for domestic waste.

Experts suggest:

Combined with the current garbage classification system, dynamically adjust the fee rate

Professor Song Guojun, director of the Institute of Environmental Policy and Planning at Renmin University of China, said in an interview with Red Star News that the specific technology is not difficult, but the entire metering and charging system is very complicated. It is a systematic project that needs to be carefully studied and done in a standardized manner. The principle is to reflect social costs. Now, there is no technical difficulty in installing chips in garbage bins, charging according to volume, and automatically uploading data to the system, and the price of chips is not high.

Song Guojun's team has calculated that the cost of the entire life cycle of domestic garbage in Beijing, from leaving the community to safe disposal, including health losses, environmental impacts, transportation costs, disposal costs, etc., is as high as about 1,500 yuan/ton.

Song Guojun believes that for sustainable development, charges must be made. Only by involving the market can the cost of domestic waste management be guaranteed to be real. Only by letting the emitters bear the cost can the reduction of garbage be stimulated and the social cost of domestic waste management can be greatly reduced.

Song Guojun also said that different rates should be charged for different categories in combination with the current garbage classification system. If the rates for other garbage are higher, then products with non-recyclable packaging will be even less popular. For kitchen waste, a unified price cannot be simply implemented. It must be divided into raw kitchen waste, cooked kitchen waste, etc. Some of them not only do not need to be processed and charged, but can be purchased.

"After the rate is determined, it needs to be adjusted dynamically. Different cities are also different, and each needs to issue its own regulations." Song Guojun said.

Song Guojun also introduced that there are still many considerations in the arrangement of the funding system. For example, it is necessary to subsidize the recycling of waste plastics and promote recycling and processing, because the social cost of incineration is actually higher; the finished products of recyclable materials such as waste plastics must be purchased and subsidized by the government; it is necessary to consider the reduction in the income of landfills due to the reduction in the amount of other garbage. In addition, there are supporting systems such as franchising and information disclosure, which have placed high demands on the government's governance capabilities.

Red Star News reporter Wu Yang, intern reporter Hu Yiwen

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