How to deal with unused mobile phones? Should they be collected, discarded or recycled? And what kind of recycling merchants should be chosen for recycling? Choosing the right method not only involves whether personal information will be "sold", but is also closely related to ecological and environmental protection.

China is a major producer and consumer of electrical and electronic products, including mobile phones. "Every year, a large number of discarded electrical and electronic products are leaked into the environment if they are not properly recycled and handled, which will not only seriously pollute the environment, but also cause waste of resources." Guo Yijun, director of the Solid Waste and Chemicals Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said at a press conference held by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on October 22.

It is understood that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is constantly increasing environmental supervision on illegal dismantling of waste electrical appliances. It is clear that a special rectification campaign on illegal dismantling of waste equipment and consumer products that pollutes the environment will be carried out in China, and environmental violations will be severely cracked down on. A column for complaints and reports will be opened to publicly collect clues from the society. "For electrical and electronic products such as mobile phones, which have a large number of owners, a high penetration rate, and are closely related to public life, we are actively cooperating with relevant departments to further improve the recycling system for used mobile phones," said Guo Yijun.

The recycling of discarded electrical and electronic products is not optimistic

According to data released by the China Circular Economy Association on October 21, the average life of a mobile phone is about 2.2 years. In the past five years, China has produced an average of more than 400 million discarded mobile phones each year, and the stock of discarded mobile phones has exceeded 2 billion. However, about 54.2% of mobile phones are left idle by consumers after being discarded, and only about 5% can enter professional discarded mobile phone recycling platforms and new recycling channels of "old for new".

The "Regulations on the Recycling and Treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products" stipulates that the recycling of discarded electronic products shall implement a qualification licensing system. But in reality, shops and small workshops without recycling qualifications can often be seen on the street. Here, many screens, batteries, cameras and other components of discarded mobile phones are disassembled and sold to downstream manufacturers engaged in the assembly of knockoff machines. The motherboards of mobile phones are sold to customers from other places to extract the precious metals inside.

According to industry insiders, a mobile phone accessory contains more than 60 materials, including a variety of precious and rare metals, plastics, etc., which can be recycled and reused, but discarded mobile phones also contain a variety of harmful substances. If not handled properly, the heavy metals in discarded mobile phones will enter the soil and groundwater, which will bring risks to the ecological environment and human health.

"(Some small workshops) burn circuit boards with fire, then dissolve these metals in aqua regia, and then gradually precipitate copper, silver, gold, palladium and other metals. Such a treatment method can pollute the atmosphere and water sources. Wen Zongguo, a professor at the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, has previously pointed out this hazard.

Not only mobile phones, but other discarded electrical and electronic products also have the risk of polluting the environment. According to the Environmental Services Chamber of Commerce of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (hereinafter referred to as the Environmental Chamber of Commerce), China's production and ownership of electrical and electronic products are large, and the concentrated elimination period has led to a surge in the amount of electronic waste. The accumulated waste has increased sharply over the years. Discarded electrical and electronic products contain toxic and harmful substances, and barbaric dismantling and landfilling and incineration will cause serious harm to the environment and human health.

According to statistics from relevant industry associations, in 2023, the total amount of recycled waste household appliances in China will reach 4.5 million tons, containing metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, and plastics. However, at present, the proportion of China's waste household appliances recycled through formal channels and achieving environmentally friendly dismantling and recycling is only about 20%.

Regulate the recycling and treatment of discarded "four machines and one computer"

As mentioned above, the problem of illegal dismantling needs to be paid special attention.

The Environmental Chamber of Commerce found that in recent years, commodity prices have risen sharply, and the prices of copper, aluminum, etc. have increased. Many recyclers have begun to dismantle them on their own, and the pollution of hazardous wastes such as waste oil, waste lead-acid batteries, waste catalysts, and waste refrigerants is prominent. For example, waste household appliances contain toxic substances such as lead glass and flame retardants. Small workshops are not equipped with professional equipment, causing water, air and soil pollution.

Today, compared with emerging electronic products such as mobile phones and tablets, the illegal dismantling of the "four machines and one computer" waste products, including televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and microcomputers, has been effectively controlled.

In order to standardize the recycling and treatment of waste electrical appliances, the State Council issued the "Regulations on the Management of Recycling and Treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products" in 2009 and implemented it in 2011, establishing a waste electrical and electronic product treatment fund system. By providing financial subsidies to qualified enterprises for the dismantling and treatment of waste electrical appliances, it effectively promotes the dismantling and treatment of the "four machines and one computer" by formal enterprises.

"We actively cooperate with the Ministry of Finance to conduct an audit of the types, quantities and subsidy funds for the dismantling and treatment of waste electrical appliances, and carry out environmental supervision of the dismantling and treatment of waste electrical appliances to ensure the standardization of dismantling and the smooth implementation of the fund system." Guo Yijun said.

According to statistics, from 2012 to 2023, more than 900 million "four machines and one computer" have entered formal enterprises for standardized dismantling and processing, with a total of about 21 million tons of dismantling products, including about 4.43 million tons of plastics and about 4.72 million tons of iron, copper and its alloys. All of them are handed over to qualified enterprises for standardized processing or utilization, which not only effectively prevents environmental pollution risks, but also promotes resource recycling.

In June this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment formulated the "Standardized Environmental Supervision Work Plan for the Recycling and Utilization of Waste Equipment and Consumer Products" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which clearly stated that a special rectification campaign on illegal dismantling of waste equipment and consumer products polluting the environment will be carried out in China, and environmental violations will be severely cracked down. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and relevant local ecological and environmental departments have set up a complaint and reporting column on the portal website, publicly disclosed reporting telephone numbers and email addresses, accepted relevant clues from the public, and promptly sorted and transferred them to local ecological and environmental departments for investigation and punishment.

The recycling and utilization system of used mobile phones has also been confirmed by Guo Yijun to be further improved.

Strengthen the prevention and control of solid waste pollution such as waste power batteries

The efforts have paid off. Data released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment show that by the end of September this year, 95 formal processing companies in China had recycled and processed nearly 76 million units of waste electrical appliances, producing about 370,000 tons of waste plastics, 520,000 tons of waste copper, iron, aluminum and their alloys, all of which were recycled by downstream enterprises. Hazardous wastes and other environmental risk substances generated by various types of dismantling and processing were all used and disposed of in a standardized manner. The trend of standardized recycling of waste electrical appliances in China continued to recover and improve.

In addition to mobile phones and other electrical appliances, in recent years, with the rapid development of China's new energy vehicle industry, people are also worried about the pollution caused by waste electric vehicle power batteries.

From the perspective of professionals, waste power batteries, waste photovoltaic modules and wind turbine blades are called the "new three" solid wastes.

Guo Yijun admitted that the early electric vehicle power batteries and clean energy power generation equipment such as solar photovoltaic panels and power wind turbines will be retired one after another. The increasing "new three" solid wastes are becoming increasingly prominent, and all sectors of society are paying close attention to this.

For the environmental supervision of waste power batteries, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has successively organized the formulation of technical policies for the prevention and control of waste battery pollution and technical specifications for the treatment of waste lithium-ion power batteries, providing technical guidelines for strengthening the prevention and control of waste power battery pollution.

Since China has not yet formulated technical specifications for pollution control of waste photovoltaic components and wind turbine blades, on the one hand, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is organizing to accelerate the formulation of corresponding technical specifications for pollution control. On the other hand, it notifies local governments to strengthen the environmental supervision of these retired facilities in accordance with the environmental protection supervision standards for general industrial solid wastes in light of their actual conditions, and urges the owners to strictly fulfill their main responsibilities for pollution prevention and control, and strictly prevent the occurrence of mismanagement and loss of control.

At the same time, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment actively supports Jiangsu, Hebei, Qinghai and other places in the process of building "zero-waste cities" in light of their own actual conditions, actively explores the formulation of local standards for the control of pollution of waste photovoltaic components and wind turbine blades, promotes the comprehensive utilization or proper disposal of waste photovoltaic components and wind turbine blades, and prevents environmental pollution.

Related governance work also appears in the "Plan". It clearly states that a special rectification campaign on environmental pollution of six types of waste equipment and consumer products, including waste power batteries, waste photovoltaic components and wind turbine blades, will be carried out in China, and illegal dismantling that causes environmental pollution will be severely cracked down.

"In the next step, we will continue to strengthen environmental supervision of the dismantling of waste power batteries, waste photovoltaic components and wind turbine blades, and revise and improve relevant pollution control technical standards in a timely manner according to the research and development progress of the "new three types" solid waste recycling technology, strictly control environmental risks, and promote resource recycling and green and low-carbon development of the industry." Guo Yijun said.

In addition, China's hazardous waste supervision and utilization and disposal capabilities are also continuously improving. The reporter learned from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment that by the end of 2023, China's centralized disposal capacity for hazardous waste will reach about 210 million tons per year, an increase of 50% from 2020. In 2023, China's hazardous waste generation will be about 120 million tons, and the utilization and disposal capacity of hazardous waste will generally match the amount of waste generated. The disposal capacity of medical waste has reached 2.86 million tons/year, an increase of nearly 80% from before the epidemic, and 100% of medical waste has been safely disposed of.

Guo Yijun said, "We will continue to strictly control environmental risks and further promote the environmental management of hazardous wastes. We will accelerate the construction of a unified information system for the supervision of hazardous wastes throughout the entire process in China, strengthen real-time supervision of hazardous wastes throughout the entire process, and ensure that the transfer trajectory can be traced at any time, so as to achieve full coverage supervision with "one set of data, one network, and one set of maps."

¡õReporter Zhang Wei

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