Carbon Trading in China Reduces the Dependence of Household Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Recycling on Government Subsidies.

China's enterprises of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling suffer from low profitability that is highly dependent on government subsidies. This low economic gain impedes the sustainable growth of China's WEEE-recycling sector and also adds to the government's financial burden. Prior life-cycle studies have approved the carbon reduction potentials or net carbon credit of recycling WEEE. However, policymakers fail to know whether the revenue from selling carbon credits can offset the government's financial subsidy. We performed life-cycle and cost-benefit analyses for a case recycling enterprise that processes six categories of household appliances. The results show that the reduction potentials of greenhouse gases range from 930-3450 kgCO2e by recycling per ton of household appliances and materials substitution. The recycling enterprise would gain extra revenue ranging from 32 to 160 RMB per ton of appliance if the carbon credits were sold at China's current carbon price, i.e., 45-60 RMB tCO2e-1. Recycling waste refrigerators exhibits the highest carbon revenue, offsetting 6-17% of the government's financial subsidy. Microcomputers, by contrast, indicate the lowest carbon revenue, equivalent to 1-3% of its highest government subsidy. For each household appliance category, when the carbon price reaches 270-600 RMB tCO2e-1, selling carbon credits can fully offset the government's financial subsidy. Constrained by the processing capacity of the case enterprise, optimizations for appliance-recycling composition contribute a 15-25% profit growth to the current economic gains. Interpreting the specific profit depends on the predefined scenarios of carbon price and the substitution rate of the regenerated materials for the virginal ones. Our findings show that raising the profitability of WEEE recycling enterprises through the carbon trading policy contributes to the sustainable growth of China's WEEE-recycling sector while alleviating the government's financial burden.

Area-level socioeconomic disparities impact adult overweight and obesity risks of Han ethnicity in China.

OBJECTIVES: The profound socioeconomic processes occurring in developing countries have been accompanied by the notable increase of overweight and obese populations. This study for the first time investigates the impact of area-based socioeconomic status (SES) on adult overweight and obesity for both sexes of Han ethnicity in China. METHODS: We investigated 6,221 adult participants of Han ethnicity from 18 geographic areas in China, and measured stature and weight for each participant. The mean annual income per individual was chosen as the area-level SES index. We adopted logistic regression analysis to explore the relationship of area-level SES with overweight and obesity. RESULTS: The age-adjusted overweight and obesity prevalence was 32.46% for men and 29.27% for women respectively. Substantial area-level SES disparity in overweight and obesity risks for both sexes exist in China. The overweight and obesity prevalence rates increased with increasing SES levels in men rather than in women. CONCLUSION: Men living in high SES areas as well as women living at the lowest SES areas were most likely to be at the highest risk of overweight and obesity in China.