Officials at China's top environmental watchdog say they’ll coordinate with their counterparts in the European Union and customs officials to crack down on waste being smuggled into China.

 

"China strictly bans any imports of waste that cannot be recycled as raw materials or be treated harmlessly in the country," a source at the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said yesterday in Beijing.

 

The comments came in response to a recent program on Britain's Sky News TV entitled "Are You Poisoning China?" The program reported that plastic waste from the UK was being sent to Lianjiao, a remote village in Foshan, in south China's Guangdong Province.

 

Lianjiao was unknown to the world until the international media spotlight fell on one of its key cottage industries…importing garbage from the UK.  

 

From the 1970s the village has developed into a center for collection and distribution of waste plastic. Every year it handles more than 200,000 tons of the material with some of it imported illegally, SEPA figures show.

 

Some banned types of plastic waste have been found in Lianjiao village. Evidence of this comes from an investigation by the environmental authority.

 

No company in Lianjiao village has official approval to import waste from other countries, SEPA explains.  

 

The local government has banned unlicensed enterprises and individuals from engaging in the plastic waste business, suspended the operations of processing factories that aren’t equipped with environmental protection facilities and clamped down on enterprises that incinerate trash or illegally occupy public spaces for waste storage.

 

"But driven by immediate interests some local people still try to introduce polluting material into China, posing a threat to the environment and to public health," the SEPA source said.

 

SEPA officials have called on other countries to abide by the Basel Convention. This is an agreement aimed at controlling the illegal transport of hazardous materials between countries.

 

Officials from SEPA said they’d work with other departments to improve legislation on waste smuggling and strengthen the management of imports and reuse of waste.

 

(China Daily January 25, 2007)