Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment (Jun 2021)
Transboundary inflow of solid waste: Governance and improvement path in China
Abstract
In order to promote the sound development of circular economy,strengthen the construction of ecological environment,and deal with the negative environmental externalities caused by the transboundary inflow of solid waste (TISW), China has been gradually tightened up the supervision of TISW. In recent years, although TISW in China has slowed down, the ‘hidden’ inflow is still relatively prominent by our comparison of the data between the major outflow countries/regions and that of China. Based on China’s institutional environment and evolution path, this study has identified the government as the main body of the TISW governance in China,and the classified supervision of TISW as its basis, with relevant government departments being empowered and coordinated by the law to constantly optimize the governance procedures by promoting the pre-entry checking,port supervising and the self-disciplined compliance of stakeholders. Based on the gravity model and the unbalanced short panel data of 41 kinds of TISW with 6-digit HS coding from 12 major outflow countries/regions in the period of 2012 - 2017, this empirical analysis by the two-way fixed effect static panel data model and the GMM dynamic panel data model respectively shows that the governance from the Chinese government has a significant impact on the reduction of the volume of TISW. Besides, the significant positive coefficient of GDP also shows that China’s economic growth results in a certain demand for recyclable solid waste, but the variables of TISW catalogue adjustment and international cooperation are not significant. Therefore,in order to further enhance the efficiency of TISW governance, it is suggested that: ① The classified supervision of TISW should be up-graded and the identification standards and procedures of TISW should also be scientifically optimized by the cooperation of relevant functional departments. ② The TISW governance system at China Customs should be continuously improved by focusing on the pre- and post-entry checking and credit management of stakeholders. ③ Multi-channel international cooperation and information exchange should be promoted to achieve timely risk prevention and more effective post-entry supervision.
