Development of Circular Economy in China

Circular economy was introduced in China in 1998 as a concept. In 2002, it became a national strategy only after four years of theoretical preparation. “A circular economy, based on the most efficient use of resources and the most effective plan for environmental protection, was the only way to achieve sustainable development,” Jiang Zemin, President and General Secretary of the CPC central committee said at the second assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Later on, the National Development and Reform Commission announced officially documents that promoted circular economy development, while China’s legislator formulated the Circular Economy Promotion Law, which brought it into practice.

In China, circular economy has been heavily promoted with various laws, regulations and policies, but why? The backing of such developments by the Chinese government can be found in the history of the its role in economic development.

On September 28, 2004, the National Development and Reform Commission held the first National Working Conference on Circular Economy in Beijing with the approval from the State Council. Major officials from the development and reform commissions of all provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, autonomous regions and municipalities with independent planning status were present at the conference, the first official meeting of its kind. Ma Kai, then director of the National Development and Reform Commission (now serving as the Vice Premier of the State Council), attended the meeting and delivered a speech.

China is among the countries that first invented and used ironware, but its first steel plant, in the modern sense, had not been established until 1890 in Hanyang. When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, its pigiron output and steel output stood respectively at only 250,000 and 158,000 tons. The annual steel output ranked 26th in the world, and the per capita steel output was only 300 g. Except the iron and steel products for daily use and simple instruments of labour, iron and steel had not been applied for industrial purposes.

In China, iron, chromium and manganese are classified as ferrous metals, with other 64 kinds of metals as nonferrous metals. China usually refers to copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, nickel, tin, antimony, mercury, magnesium and titanium in huge production and consumption as ten major nonferrous metals. Ferrous metals in general sense also include nonferrous alloys. The term “non-ferrous alloys” refers to alloys based essentially on nonferrous metals (usually more than 50 %) and mingled with one or several other kinds of elements. Aluminum alloys, copper alloys and magnesium alloys etc are frequently-used nonferrous alloys.

As the most widely used fundamental building material, cement is a kind of hydraulic powdery and inorganic cementitious material. Mixed with water, it can form a paste, which will harden in air or water, and bind sand and aggregates etc. firmly together. Cement production includes three procedures: cement raw meal preparation, cement clinker burning and cement manufacturing.

The electric power industry has taken advantage of power generation facilities to covert primary energy including coal, petroleum, natural gas, hydraulic power, nuclear fuels, wind power, solar power and biomass energy into electricity which will be supplied to terminal users through the power transmission system, power transformation system and power distribution system. China’s coal-centered energy structure has determined the dominant role of thermal power in the electric power sector. Coal consumption in China’s coal-fired power plants accounts for more than 50 % of the national total. Large amounts of water resources are consumed in the process, while great quantities of atmospheric pollutants, including ash, soot and sulfur dioxide are also generated. All these disadvantages make the electric power industry a prior field for China’s circular economy development, energy conservation and emission reduction. China now has the largest installed capacity in the world, and has already become the globally largest electricity producer. Therefore, the circular economy-oriented practice in China’s electric power industry will impose profound influence on the global resources and environment.

The petrochemical industry is a sub-sector of the chemical industry which has been engaged in using petroleum as raw materials to produce chemicals. In a broad sense, it also includes the natural gas-based chemical sector. Its major raw materials are various petroleum fractions and refinery gas generated in the process of petroleum refining as well as associated gas and natural gas. Light petroleum fractions and natural gas can be used to produce synthetic ammonia and synthetic methanol through steam reforming. Alkenes can be used to produce various kinds of alcohol, ketone, aldehyde and acid compounds as well as epoxy compounds. Along with technological development, the abovementioned alkenes and arenes can be processed to produce polymer products including synthetic resin, synthetic rubber and synthetic fiber as well as a series of fine chemicals like surfactant. Therefore, the petrochemical industry has reached out to a majority of the sectors in the polymer chemical industry and the fine chemical industry. In addition to the petrochemical industry, this chapter also involves the general chemical industry.

The papermaking industry is closely related to the development of national economy and the progress of social civilization, internationally regarded as an “inexhaustible” industry. It has become one of the ten major pillar manufacturing industries in those economically developed countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, Finland and Sweden. Different from the ordinary consumer goods industry, the modern papermaking industry is a technology-intensive, capital-intensive, resource-intensive and energy-intensive basic materials sector featuring continuous, efficient production and noted scale merits. More than 80 % of its output has been used in the fields of press, publication, printing, and commodity package and some other industrial sectors, while less than 20 % has been directly consumed by people. Featuring a high industrial relevance, the papermaking industry is reaching out to the industries of forestry, agriculture, machine manufacturing, chemical engineering, thermal power, transportation, and environmental protection, and plays a role in driving the economic development of its upstream and downstream industries. Its product mix covers paper pulp, machine-made paper and paperboard, converted paper, and hand-made paper etc.

The food manufacturing industry can be fragmented into various sub-sectors according to different kinds of food processing and manufacturing methods. The National Bureau of Statistics of China has classified the industry into seven categories: bakery manufacturing; confectionery, chocolate and candied fruit manufacturing; instant food manufacturing; liquid milk and dairy manufacturing; canning; manufacturing of condiments and fermented products; and manufacturing of other food. Most of the foods are processed in a simple way except condipments and fermented products which feature bulk production and complicated processes. Their manufacturing involves several biotransformation reactions and separation processes, while large amounts of by-products and many kinds of pollutants will be generated in the process, creating huge potentials of developing the circular economy in the sector.

China has remained a predominantly agricultural country since the Chinese civilization was born 6000 years ago. Since 2000, Chinese farmers have already had the pristine idea of the circular economy. They have fermented feces, garbage, crop stalks, green manure and biogas slurry etc and reused them in agricultural production. Farmers’ livestock and poultry, fish, mulberry, marsh gas, vegetable plots, farmland, fish ponds, wood and villages have constituted the prime ecosystem featuring circular economy development. “Mulberry fish pond complex” and “rice-duck farming” have been summarized as the pristine models of the circular economy development of China’s agriculture.