China's draft recycling law has abandoned a system to charge households varying prices for water, electricity and gas according to how much they use, because of impracticality.

The draft law, made to boost sustainable development through energy saving and reduction of pollutant discharges, was submitted yesterday to the fourth session of the 11th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature, for the third reading.

It was likely to be approved at the session which is due to end on Friday.

The progressive price-markup system has been a controversial issue.

It was in the first draft but was deleted when the draft law went through the second reading in June.

After the second reading, some law makers insisted that the system should be included in the law, but it was eventually abandoned because investigations showed that it was too difficult to assess the level of water and power consumption in each household.

The system would also require the central government to install different meters in each home, which would consume a great deal of both money and time, the NPC's Law Committee said in a report.

The central government issued a circular in 2002, urging all cities to implement a step-pricing system on household water use by the end of 2005.

However, only around 80 out of 661 cities are using the pricing method, figures from the National Development and Reform Commission showed.

At present, no city implements the step-pricing method on gas, and only the three provinces of Yunnan, Zhejiang and Sichuan use the pricing method on electricity.

The draft, which was submitted for the first reading in August last year, stipulates that governments at all levels should make plans to develop recycling, establish systems to control energy use and pollutant emission, strengthen management on companies with high energy and water consumption, and divert capital into environmentally friendly industries.

The draft recycling law also introduces rewards and penalties for companies, encouraging them to develop recycling by making them responsible for the recycling of their products.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2008)