Wang Dongming, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which is the supreme organ of state power of the People’s Republic of China, stated on December 22 that China’s resource recycling system is increasingly complete, and that the country has initially established the world’s largest and most category-comprehensive recycling and reuse network. According to Wang, in 2024 scrap steel accounted for roughly 21 percent of the raw materials fed into steel production, playing a vital role in safeguarding resource security.
As of the end of October 2025, the scrap-to-steel ratio in China (the proportion of scrap consumption per total crude steel output) stood at 212 kilograms per metric ton, up by 14.5 percent compared to the average level recorded in the 2016-2020 period, which was 185 kilograms per metric ton. Government policy aims to raise the utilization rate of scrap, with the comprehensive scrap-to-steel ratio in China expected to reach 30 percent by the end of 2030.