BIR disappointed by China’s confirmed impurity limits

global – Quoting local sources, the BIR world recycling organisation has informed members that China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and AQSIQ have published GB 16487 Environmental Protection Control Standards confirming impurity limits for a number of wastes.

These are: ferrous 0.5%, non-ferrous 1%, smelt slag 0.5%, waste electric motors 0.5%, wires and cables 0.5%, metal and appliance scrap 0.5%, vessels 0.05%, autos 0.3%, wood 0.5%, paper 0.5% and plastics 0.5%. BIR expresses ‘regret’ that its concerns raised with the MEP and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in letter dated December 8 last year ‘were not fully taken into account’.

In the letter, BIR had suggested changes to the GB Standards that accompanied the Chinese WTO notifications of November 15. The impurity ceilings in the 2005 version of China’s GB Standards were already ‘extremely high’, the world federation argued, when compared to generally-adopted commercial specifications with thresholds of generally 2-5%. BIR proposed as an initial step the strict enforcement of the GB Standards from 2005 so that experience might be gained of using such standards.