BEIJING -- Lawmakers in China on Wednesday called for the establishment of a system to recycle discarded home appliances and electronic goods to reduce environmental pollution.
"There is no time to delay for building the system in both rural and urban areas," said Li Dongsheng, a deputy to the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), on the sidelines of the parliamentary annual session.
According to the statistics from the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner, the quantity of China's discarded home appliances has risen around 20 percent annually in recent years.
"At the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), more than 160 million home appliances will be discarded every year," Li said, who is also chairman of TCL Corp., China's leading consumer electrical appliance producer.
He added that a system for recycling those wastes will be an important measure to save resources and reduce environmental pollution.
From June 2009 to the end of 2011, China introduced a policy of "cash for clunkers" to encourage people to sell old home appliances while purchase new ones.
Xu Jinglong, also an NPC deputy from the central Anhui province, said electronic wastes create serious pollution, and the country must improve its laws and regulations to improve the environment.
The existing Environmental Pollution Prevention and Control Law of Solid Wastes is too sweeping to address the problem of heavy metals in e-wastes, Xu said.
"I suggest more specific and practical articles when the law is amended," said Xu.
