On May 10, six ministries and commissions, including the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission, issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Transformation and Upgrading of the Recycling Industry". Currently, affected by the economic downturn, the recycling industry is facing challenges such as a continuous decline in prices and rising operating costs, and urgently needs to change its development mode and achieve transformation and upgrading. To thoroughly implement the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Advancement of Ecological Civilization Construction", promote the implementation of the "Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Construction of the Recycling System (2015-2020)", and accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading of the recycling industry, the following opinions are put forward.

Various provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, separately planned cities, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps' departments in charge of commerce, development and reform, industry and information technology, environmental protection, urban and rural construction, and supply and marketing cooperatives: In recent years, China's recycling industry has developed rapidly, with a significant expansion in industry scale and continuous improvement in technical level, providing strong support for promoting green, circular, and low-carbon economic development and building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society. Currently, affected by the economic downturn, the recycling industry is facing challenges such as a continuous decline in prices and rising operating costs, and urgently needs to change its development mode and achieve transformation and upgrading. To thoroughly implement the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Advancement of Ecological Civilization Construction" (Zhongfa [2015] No. 12), promote the implementation of the "Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Construction of the Recycling System (2015-2020)" (Shangliutongfa [2015] No. 21), and accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading of the recycling industry, the following opinions are put forward.

I. Overall Requirements

(1) Guiding Ideology Fully implement the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 18th Central Committee, in accordance with the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on promoting green development and ecological civilization construction, adhere to the five development concepts, take accelerating the transformation of the development mode and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading as the main line, adapt to the development trend of "Internet+", focus on promoting innovation in recycling models, promote the transformation of the operating mode from extensive to intensive, promote the transformation of organizational forms from labor-intensive to a combination of labor, capital, and technology-intensive, and establish a sound and complete recycling system.

(2) Basic Principles

1. Combining market operation with government guidance. Market-oriented operation is the main approach, with government departments increasing guidance on market-failure varieties and improving recycling rates through institutional regulations and policy support.

2. Combining standardized order with industry innovation. Strengthen the establishment and improvement of laws, regulations, and standards to regulate recycling transactions. Promote enterprise transformation and upgrading through technological innovation, model innovation, and service innovation.

3. Combining highlighting key areas with taking others into account. Focus on the recycling and sorting links, while also focusing on the entire process of recycling, sorting, transportation, processing, and utilization of recyclable resources. Starting from the source of waste generation, establish a sound recycling channel; through improving sorting and processing technology, achieve effective connection with the waste utilization link.

4. Combining economic benefits with social benefits. In the process of implementing reduction, reuse, and resource utilization, always pay attention to environmental protection and avoid causing secondary pollution. Encourage enterprises to pursue economic benefits while paying attention to social benefits and assuming social responsibilities.

II. Main Tasks

(3) Establishing New Concepts for Industry Development Recycling is an important part of the circular economy and an important content of ecological civilization construction. Faced with the new situation of ecological civilization construction, recycling enterprises should establish the concept of prioritizing environmental protection while paying attention to resource utilization. At the same time, under the current situation where the prices of major recyclable materials are continuously declining, operating costs are increasing, and survival pressure is high, recycling enterprises should abandon the idea of waiting, relying, and asking for help, dare to reform and innovate, establish a new concept of "Internet+" development, innovate recycling models and organizational methods, cultivate new impetus, and expand new space.

(4) Promoting the New Model of "Internet + Recycling" Encourage enterprises to use modern information technologies and methods such as the Internet, big data, and cloud computing to establish or integrate recycling information service platforms, build information release, competitive procurement, and logistics service platforms for upstream recycling enterprises and downstream dismantling and utilization enterprises, improve the organizational level of recycling enterprises, reduce transaction costs, and optimize the recycling, dismantling, and utilization industrial chain. Taking discarded electrical and electronic products and discarded beverage bottles as a breakthrough point, pilot intelligent automatic recycling machines in communities, shopping malls, and other public places with conditions; using intelligent information cards as carriers, improve offline recycling outlets, and encourage residents and enterprises and institutions to actively submit materials through incentive mechanisms, achieving the unification of online information flow and offline logistics. Encourage Internet companies to participate in mobile phone APP, WeChat, and website recycling services for recyclable resources, achieving an organic combination of online waste submission and offline recycling.

(5) Exploring New Mechanisms for the Synergistic Development of the Two Networks Promote cities with conditions to innovate work systems and mechanisms, pilot the synergistic development of recycling and household waste sorting systems, and encourage strengthening docking in key links: First, in the collection link, fully consider the convenience of recycling when setting up household waste collection containers, so that usable resources are prioritized for recycling and avoid entering the garbage transportation system as much as possible, reducing garbage volume while improving resource recycling rates. Second, in the recycling link, promote the integration of recycling outlets and household waste collection stations in areas with conditions. Third, in the transportation and sorting link, explore the use of waste commodity recycling vehicles to transport recyclable materials to garbage transfer stations. Fourth, in the processing link, connect the waste commodity sorting centers and processing bases with the end-of-pipe garbage treatment facilities to improve resource recycling rates and reduce resource waste.

(6) Exploring New Ways to Improve Organization First, continue to encourage chain operation. Encourage leading enterprises to integrate small and medium-sized enterprises and individual businesses through chain operation, franchising, etc., in accordance with market laws, making full use of the strength of scavengers, community residents, and other parties to form stable, efficient, safe, and convenient recycling channels. Second, focus on promoting platform-based development. Reasonably plan and construct recycling trading platforms, integrate scattered scavengers and small and medium-sized enterprises through information platforms, gradually form an intensive organizational form, and improve the scale and organizational level of recycling enterprises. Third, improve the level of aggregation. For traditional gathering and distribution centers formed historically in various places, efforts should be made to upgrade and transform them. Promote the transformation of gathering and distribution markets from scattered, chaotic, and poor stall-style collections to enterprise-style collections, from single commodity trading functions to multi-functional directions such as information exchange, price formation, commodity distribution, and fund settlement, and from purely offline transactions to online and offline combinations. Improve the information collection, analysis, processing, and release mechanism of gathering and distribution markets, compile and release price indexes for key varieties, guide reasonable resource allocation, and promote orderly industry development.

(7) Exploring New Ways to Build Reverse Logistics Encourage enterprises with conditions to cooperate with upstream manufacturers and sellers to pilot the construction of reverse logistics systems for recyclable resources such as discarded electrical and electronic products through methods such as "trade-ins", using existing logistics systems. Promote the green development of warehousing and distribution and packaging, and standardize logistics and distribution packaging. Increase investment in waste recycling logistics processing facilities, build recycling logistics centers, improve the collection, warehousing, sorting, packaging, and processing levels of recyclable resources, and establish a safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly logistics system with the help of socialized and professional logistics enterprises.

(8) Encourage the application of new sorting and processing technologies Sorting and processing enterprises connect with scavengers upstream and utilizing enterprises downstream, serving as a crucial link in the entire industrial chain. Encourage the research and development of equipment for recycled resource recovery, sorting, and processing, providing comprehensive solutions for recycled resource sorting and processing. Encourage the introduction of modern, automated, and intelligent technological equipment to improve the scientific and refined level of sorting and processing, promote full docking with waste generation links, and achieve effective connection with utilization links.

III. Safeguarding Measures

(9) Establish a Guiding Mechanism Local commerce authorities should establish a system for key contact sorting and processing enterprises based on the provincial key contact enterprises identified by the "Recycled Resource Information Management System." Strengthen communication and exchanges with key contact enterprises, grasp the development status of the industry, understand the policy needs of enterprises, coordinate to resolve prominent difficulties and common problems in the development of enterprises, and promptly report relevant industry information. Introduce and summarize, publicize, and promote representative, typical, and innovative recycling models such as "Internet + Recycling" and intelligent recycling, and promptly report to the Ministry of Commerce; increase publicity efforts and raise public awareness of the construction of the recycled resource recovery system.

(10) Improve Incentive Mechanisms Provide support for qualified integrated innovation platforms and application demonstration pilot projects using existing special fiscal funds. Leverage the leading role of investment and financing, explore the coordinated development of Internet finance, venture capital, angel investment, and other investment and financing platforms with the industry, and improve financing services to support industry innovation. Actively seek preferential land policies. Actively study the inclusion of key technological research and development and application in the recycling industry in science and technology plans. Provide policy support for recycling models of market failure varieties.

(11) Strengthen Constraint Mechanisms Strengthen pollution control work in all aspects of recycled resource recovery and utilization, support the construction of pollution control facilities, increase the enforcement of environmental protection laws, and legally investigate and punish enterprises that pollute the environment, making the information public. Strictly implement industry access and exit mechanisms primarily based on environmental protection and energy-saving indicators. Study the establishment of a producer, seller, and consumer responsibility mechanism for recycled resources.

(12) Improve Security Mechanisms Give full play to the role of industry associations, organize the formulation and revision of standards for key areas and key varieties, increase the publicity and implementation of standards, and promote the formation of a batch of recycled resource recovery enterprises and parks that meet the standard requirements, have high management levels, leading technological levels, and standardized operations. Study and establish a scientific, reasonable, fully functional, and unified and authoritative overall framework for the recycled resource standard system; improve professional talent cultivation and perfect the mechanism for the connection and interaction between production, education, and research; establish vocational training institutions and strengthen vocational education and training for frontline recycling workers.