Study On Management Legislation Of Waste From Electrical And Electronic Equipment In China

With the rapid development of modern science, technology and economy, the updating for electronic products becomes faster and faster. In addition to consumers'growing demand for electronic products, the life cycle of electronic products has accordingly become increasingly shorter, and inevitably the problem of electronic waste has popped up before us. In the 21st century, China has become the world's largest electronics producer and consumer, hence ushering in the peak of scrap electronic products, together with the influx of "foreign garbage", so that China's electronic waste management is faced with "internal and external," the double pressure. E-waste is produced with modern electronic information technology and becomes more serious. Electronic waste is characterized by highly increasing speed, large quantity, great hazard, high potential value and difficult safe disposal, and if improperly handled, will do great harm to the ecological environment and human health, meanwhile causing a great waste of non-renewable resources. In order to better regulate e-waste problems, promote China's economic development, and handle the international competition in the new era, e-waste management legislation is imperative.There are still many imperfections in China's current e-waste management legislation, like, a low level of legislation, a confusion of legal system, a lack of integrity, and poor maneuverability. E-waste management laws and regulations available mainly appear in the form of regulations for all sectors, such as "e-waste pollution prevention and control management", "waste electrical and electronic products recycling regulations" and "waste electrical and electronic products recycling regulations"implemented on January 1, 2011. Currently there are no specially high level of legislation for our electronic waste, so that when departmental rules and regulations conflict with other laws and regulations, it's hard to get the normal application, and thus not conducive to the effective management of electronic waste. Because of the highly developed economy and early start of the electronics industry, developed countries were facing environmental problems resulting from electronic waste earlier, and have accumulated some experience in pollution control and recycling, and established a relatively perfect laws and regulations. Therefore, China should learn from developed countries in terms of their legislation on electronic waste management experience, combined with our current basic national conditions, to develop a special law of a standardized electronic waste management, providing legal protection for the development of recycling economy, the implementation of sustainable development strategy, and the establishment of a harmonious society.By using comparative and analytical method of e-waste management legislation research, this paper takes the course of "asking questions - analyzing problems - solving problems". On the basis of scientific definition of"electronic waste", this paper, starting from the unique characteristics of electronic waste, points out it is imperative that e-waste legislation should be enforced, combined with the status quo of electronic waste industry in our country; then starting from the theory of circular economy, product life cycle theory and the extended producer responsibility for electronic waste management, this paper intends to seek theoretical support of legislation, and makes a detailed analysis of the need for electronic waste management legislation. Lastly, this paper makes a domestic and international comparative study of electronic waste legislation, and in the light of China's non-standardized electronic waste recycling industry and defects in existing legislation and on the basis of successful experience borrowed from foreigh legislation on electronic waste management, this paper puts forward a complete set of legislative proposals for e-waste management. The core part of the paper is "problem-solving", that is, to improve the legislative proposals for management of electronic waste.The purpose of enacting a law is to solve some important and urgent problems that must be regulated in the form of laws and regulations. China's current urgency of electronic waste calls for a special law to be drawn up as soon as possible to regulate e-waste management. The law itself alone is not special at all, yet the key is the purpose of formulating the law, that is, to solve the problem. I believe that e-waste management legislation must tackle the following issues : clarifying the government's responsibilities in the process of the management of e-waste pollution prevention and recycling, namely, who is t in charge of it; carrying out specific legislation on electronic waste, namely , what is needed to solve management issues; further improving the system of extended producer responsibility and specifying their main responsibility and obligation to provide financial security for electronic waste recycling and processing, namely, who will bear the responsibility; improving public awareness of recycling, specifying the obligations of the owners of the electronic waste and advocating green consumption, namely, who will submit the problem to solve; establishing the recycling system suitable for China, namely, who will recycle the electronic waste; establishing specialized recycling companies, namely, who will dispose of the electronic waste. In this ideal model of legislation, there are some people who are in charge, some laws that guide, some people who assume, some people who submit, some people who recyle and some people who process. From such a perspective, the author intends to analyse and offer advice, looking forward to offering some valuable suggestions and countermeasures for reference in terms of electronic waste management legislation.