China has made some environment protection policies and specifications which provide the limits of toxic and harmful substances for lighting equipment and recovery of discarded fluorescent lamps.
These policies and specification are:
l Measures for the Administration of the Control of Pollution by Electronic Information products(often referred to as “China RoHS”):The luminaries included in the measures are high pressure sodium lamps, compact fluorescent lamps, halogen lamp and etc. The measures set the limits of the toxic and hazardous substances or elements in electronic information products, testing methods and marking for control of pollution.
l Technical Policy on Waste Home Electronic Appliance and Electrical Pollution Prevention: This policy often refers to as “China WEEE”. The policy presents the polluter pays principle, which is the control of pollution of discarded products is shared responsibility by producers, sellers and consumers.
l GB/T 22908-2008 Technical specification of abandoned fluorescent lamp’s recycling and reuse: The specification takes effect from 1 September 2009. The specification establishes the requirements of recovery and recycling for single-capped fluorescent lamps and double-capped fluorescent lamps.
l Technical Policy on Prevention and Control of Hazardous Waste Pollution: The policy provides the administration of mercury-containing waste fluorescent lamp, and covers that country should conduct sorted collection to mercury-containing waste fluorescent lamp and municipal solid waste, strengthen the administration of production, collection and handling for waste fluorescent lamp, and encourage business researching and developing the treatment and recycling technology of waste fluorescent lamp.
In addition, compact fluorescent lamps and ballast of tubular fluorescent lamps also may carry out voluntary China Environmental Labeling Certification. These products adopted the HJ/J 230-2006 and HJ/T 232-2006 separately. Ministry of Environment Protection of the People’s Republic of China is revising HJ/T 230-2006 from 10 January 2011. The scope of proposal standard includes single-capped fluorescent lamps, double-capped fluorescent lamps, self-ballasted fluorescent lamps, high pressure sodium lamps, metal halide lamps, self-ballasted LED lamps for general lighting services. The proposal standard establishes the requirements of performance, environment protection, energy
efficiency, limits of the toxic and hazardous substances and recovery and etc.