China Says No to "Foreign Garbage", and Tungsten Scrap is Also on the Restricted List

According to the Global Times, U.S. officials at the WTO on March 23 expressed concern about China's cessation of receiving foreign garbage and asked China to stop implementing relevant measures. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying criticized the US side's statement on the 26th that "the outline goes online" is very hypocritical, and the so-called concern "is unreasonable, unreasonable and lawless".

Last July, the General Office of the State Council issued the Implementing Plan for Prohibiting the Entry of Foreign Waste and Promoting the Reform of the Management System of Solid Waste Import, which calls for a complete ban on the entry of foreign waste. Let the European and American countries at a loss, into panic. The Waste Recycling Association, an American political lobby organization, said at the time that China's ban would hit the industry hard, affecting about 155,000 jobs. Throughout 2016, the United States exported about $5.6 billion worth of waste products to mainland China.

Although the ban announced in July last year did not include scrap metals, the media reported last year that the recycling Department of the China Nonferrous Metals Association had been notified that imports of scrap wires, engines and large quantities of scrap metals might be banned next year (2018). Among them, in the list of scrap metals, scrap tungsten also belongs to the category of import restriction.

Tungsten is a strategic resource. Why are waste tungsten on the import restriction list? In fact, under the current technological conditions, most of the tungsten waste recovery in China still belongs to the high pollution industry. For example, various methods of recovery and treatment of waste tungsten powder at home and abroad, including oxidation method, soda sintering method, zinc melting method, leaching and grinding method, have many problems, such as complicated process, low tungsten recovery rate, dust environmental pollution and so on. The recovery methods of waste tungsten carbide include nitrate method, sodium sulfate smelting method, chlorination method, phosphoric acid leaching method, high temperature treatment method, crushing method, electrolysis method, zinc melting method and redox method, etc. However, most of the existing processes also have some problems, such as poor applicability, high energy consumption and environmental pollution.

In fact, in the late 1980s, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal fully confirmed that countries have the right to prohibit foreign hazardous wastes and other wastes from entering their territory. The Convention also stipulates that States are obliged to reduce and dispose of their own hazardous wastes and other wastes in the vicinity. She expressed the hope that the United States, in accordance with the spirit of the Convention, would base itself on reducing, treating and digesting its own hazardous wastes and other wastes, and assume more responsibilities and obligations for the world." All in all, I hope the United States can digest its own garbage. (China Tungsten Online: Weiping)

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