China's newly released Administrative Measures for the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Electronic Waste, which will be formally enacted from February 1, 2008, states that any enterprises that run e-waste services without permission shall be fined up to RMB500,000.

The new Measures stipulate that the operators of electronic waste dismantling, utilizing and disposal must register with the concerned local government departments and their pollution control techniques adopted in processing e-waste must reach the national standards. It says those violators shall be fined RMB50,000 to RMB500,000.

The Measures also say that e-waste that has not been completely recycled or disposed of must not be handed to any businesses that do not possess the correct qualifications to deal with the e-waste, and if the operators don't meet the relevant standards in processing the e-waste and bring about some pollution to the environment, they shall be punished by the local environment departments with fines up to RMB30,000.

China's e-waste will increase dramatically in the coming years with an estimated amount of over four million television sets, more than five million washing machines and refrigerators, over six million computers and 30 million mobile phones to be discarded each year.