As from 1 September 2020, Chinese customs authorities have been tightening the enforcement on the existing regulations regarding imports of recycled plastics pellets. They impose a penalty of between RMB 500K (~US$ 75K) and RMB 5M (~US$ 750K) for violating the rules of "three uniformities", i.e. uniform color, size, and packaging.

In parallel, Chinese authorities are drafting an update of the China Standard (GB/T) for Recycled Plastic Pellets which will come into force as from January 1st, 2021 and which will likely make the three uniformities and other requirements even more hard to comply with.

Chinese have been tightening the enforcement of the existing regulations on imports of recycled plastics pellets.

According to BIR (Bureau of International Recycling), most recyclers have chosen to refrain from importing for the time being until the situation is clear. Some had goods arriving after 1 September 2020 and found that these goods were inspected but managed to pass the laboratory test.

The Chinese authorities give this matter a lot of exposure in public media to draw recyclers' attention to this latest strict enforcement of rules. The global recycling industry is concerned about the new developments and is expecting new trade barriers for shipping recycled material to the Far East, remarked BIR in a statement.

As the BIR Secretariat continuously encourages all governments to implement and enforce both international and national environmental laws, BIR strongly advises all exporters and importers to comply with all applicable laws.