Circular Economy: A New Development Strategy for Sustainable Development in China

Development in China SHI Lei*, XING Lu*, BI Jun*, ZHANG Bin* *) State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environment, Nanjing University; Center for Environmental Management and Policy, Nanjing University and Jiangsu Environmental Production Department, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China ABSTRACT Circular economy is a theory which advocates developing economy on the basis of 3R principle: reduce the amount of resource consumption and pollutant emission, promote material recycle and reuse the waste. Circular economy is a new development strategy which is suitable for the constructing well-off society. Moreover circular economy is regarded as a key guiding principle for realizing sustainable development in China. In this paper, the concept and principles of circular economy were introduced firstly. Then the major progress of the circular economy in China was described in detail. According to the development features of circular economy in China, there is a three-layer approach in implementing circular economy: micro or individual firm level, meso or industrial park level and macro or society level. Particular emphases are given to present practice of this three-layer circular economy in this paper. On consideration of the characteristics and problems for the development of the circular economy in China, suggestions are recommended which include promoting cleaner production, establishing more suitable laws, economic polices and regulations for the recovery of resources and the disposal of waste materials, and promulgating knowledge on circular economy.