China is preparing to release new rare earths mining industry standards to reduce pollution, state media said on Friday, after the world’s biggest supplier cut export quotas for the minerals used to make a range of goods.
China, which produces about 97 percent of the global supply of the metals, cut its export quota by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 compared with a year earlier, saying it wanted to conserve reserves and protect the environment.
The new mining standards, described as “stringent” by an expert who helped draft the rules, would limit the amount of permissible pollutants in each liter of waste water, the official English-language newspaper the China Daily said.
Under new rules, expected to pinch rare earths miners with raised environmental protection costs, levels of ammonia nitrogen would be cut from 25 milligrams to 15 milligrams per liter, and radioactive elements and phosphorus emissions would be reduced.
The new regulations could be formally unveiled as soon as February after being approved by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection in December, the China Daily said.
It added that China was mulling the creation of a rare earth industry association and a governmental unit to further reign in mining abuses.
Beijing has long said other countries should share the burden of mining rare earths, and that illegal mining practices and over-exporting the metals have hurt China’s environment and depleted its resources.
But China’s quotas have sparked tensions with global importers of the metals, and the United States has threatened to take its complaint to the World Trade Organization, which judges international trade disputes.
Japan’s trade minister said this week that he wanted to visit China this month to talk to officials there to secure enough rare earths, which are vital to make electronics and clean energy technology including computers, wind turbines and electric cars.
