Championing consumption for a worthy cause

China will encourage steady increases in spending on home appliances, automobiles, and other big-ticket items, and abolish excessive restrictions on sales of secondhand vehicles, the report said.

Zhang Jindong, a deputy to the 13th NPC and chairman of Suning Holdings Group, one of the largest retailers in China, said the government should guide consumers to enhance their awareness of energy conservation, and the need for timely replacement of old household appliances with energy-efficient, environmentally friendly products.

"We should improve the recycling mechanism of waste home appliances, create a closed-loop industry of trade-in services, and thus contribute to a green consumption cycle and develop circular economy," he said.

In 2019, the world produced a record 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste. From 2014 to 2019, the volume of the waste increased 21 percent, said a report released by the United Nations last year.

Small equipment including vacuum cleaners and microwave ovens accounted for the largest chunk－32 percent－of the total electronic waste. Scrapped electronic appliances have become the fastest-growing domestic garbage globally.

That's due to the constant evolution of technologies, which makes products made with previous versions obsolete sooner than expected, according to the UN report.

China's largest secondhand electronics recycling platform All Things Renew, formerly known as Aihuishou, saw the number of recycling orders at its stores nationwide surge more than 500 percent year-on-year during this year's Spring Festival holiday in February. It also saw a surge in the volume of trade-in services.