BEIJING - China will speed up recycling and utilisation of renewable resources such as metals scrap in an effort to build low-carbon development and meet its carbon neutrality goal, the State Council said on Monday.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, urged local governments and related authorities to improve recycling system of waste and used home appliances and to establish a recycling system to increase utilisation and output rates of renewable resources such as scrap metals and plastics.

China had allowed imports of high-grade copper and aluminium scrap in November 2020 and gave the approval for high-grade steel scrap imports starting 2021 to meet robust demand of the materials.

The cabinet also asked to increase usages of renewable resources and “develop hydrogen energy and biomass energy... according to local conditions,” it said in a statement on its website.

“By 2025... discharge of major pollutants will continue to decrease, carbon emission will significantly reduce,” said the State Council.

President Xi Jinping had promised to bring China’s carbon emission to a peak within a decade and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

(Reporting by Min Zhang and Shivani Singh; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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