15.3. Other independent variants

However, all of this data concerning the objectives of a policy does not provide any indications on the existence of outcomes. It is not yet possible to conclude the extent to which the policy objectives have been achieved (or not achieved) thanks to the implementation of the policy in question by means of a simple comparison aimed at values and real values (indicators concerning objectives). These changes may also be the outcome of other factors. To exclude the distractions of the factors irrelevant with the policies, the other independent variants will be discussed here.

A. The macro environment of global waste trade

The macro environment of global waste trade, including higher global price of solid waste, competition from other import countries, as well as decreasing provision of solid waste from developed countries due to economic crisis can also leads to the impact of the shutdown of small and home workshop enterprises; decrease of the amount of imported solid waste used by the enterprises; and the mitigated phenomenon of transferring, renting and borrowing solid waste.

B. The changes in waste policies of export country

The possibilities of the changes in waste policies of export countries, such as stricter regulations on the export of waste to other countries; less financial incentives given to exporters of waste will produce the impacts of Increasing rate of the qualified solid waste pre-shipment; increasing rate of the qualified solid waste upon arrival; reduced number of illegal shipment of solid waste.

C. Increasing international cooperation under the Basel Convention

Increasing international cooperation, such as more frequent and reliable procedures of notifications and improved information exchanges will also lead to the impact of increasing rate of the qualified solid waste pre-shipment; increasing rate of the qualified solid waste upon arrival; and reduced number of illegal shipment of solid waste.

D. Other Domestic policies: recycled economy policy, infrastructure policy, transportation

policy

The policy of recycled economy can produce the output of subsidy to the environmental-friendly equipment and technologies, which will lead to impact on enterprises to invest more in environmental-friendly equipment and technologies. In the same way, the infrastructures policy will boost the development of the enclosed management zone by providing the zones with good facilities. The transportation policy may produce an output of restraining the transport of imported solid waste, which will also lead to an impact of decreased amount of solid waste used by the enterprises due to high transportation requirements and increasing transportation costs.

Figure XIII: The dimensions of evaluating China’s policy of importing solid waste

and the relevant indicators

Chapter IV: Conclusions

From the analysis of the previous chapters, it can be concluded that, to settle the problems of environment, public health, resources, and industrial development brought by China’s importation of solid waste, China’s policy has evolved since 1980s and became a more and more comprehensive policy with mixed PAPs with diverse implementations; Central PAAs of multiple actors: formal and discriminatory APs, and coherent and formal outputs. Apart from the dimensions used in the evaluative statements disclosed to the public by the public-administrative actors, various dimensions of impacts, such as decreasing amount of imported solid waste, more investment in technologies and equipment by enterprises and etc; as well as the dimensions of outcomes, such as the improvement of the environment surrounding the enterprises, lower complaints from residents and etc; can also be employed to evaluate the policy. It should be noted that, several other independent variables, such as the macro environment of global waste trade, the changes in waste policies of export countries, increasing international cooperation, and other domestic policies, should be excluded in evaluation. In the games of policy actors, based on certain institutions, actors will use their own resources to influence the policy products. In the example of China’s Association of Waste Plastics, under the institutional rules of associations’ participation in consultation on policy-making, they used resources of information and expertise to persuade policy-makers and also the resources of organization to reinforce the opinions of the enterprises using solid waste when policy-makers formulate relevant standards, rules and laws. In the example of policy implementation at Luqiao District, the policy actors, the enterprises, the local governments and the residents as well as environmental organization all employ the resources at their own disposal, such as money, information, consensus, force to affect policy implementation.

Due to the limits of time and access to data, the author only proposes some dimensions for evaluating the policy, but restrains from conducting an real systematic evaluation of the policy. Therefore, a systematic evaluation of the policy may be achieved in the future. Moreover, in this thesis, the author only demonstrates the resources employed by actors based on institutional rules at the stage of policy programming and policy implementation. With the provision of more time and data, the games of policy actors at other stages of policy cycle can also be studies by other scholars.