China announces fund for electrical waste processing

BEIJING - China's Ministry of Finance said Wednesday that the country will start amassing a special fund from July this year to subsidize the cost of dealing with waste electrical and electronic equipment.

The fund will be paid by domestic producers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment, according to a regulation jointly issued by the ministry and five other departments.

The fund's establishment aims to promote comprehensive utilization of resources and encourage energy saving and environment protection, it said.

Under the regulation, the collection and subsidy criteria varies depending on the equipment. For example, it will collect 13 yuan ($2.05) from producers for each TV set, but offer a subsidy of 85 yuan for the treatment of each waste TV set.

As a major manufacturer and consumer of electrical and electronic equipment, at the end of 2011, Chinese owned around 520 million TV sets, 300 million fridges, 330 million air conditioners, 320 million washing machines and 300 million computers. Tens of millions of the items are disposed of and require waster processing annually, according to the ministry.