This is the English edition. The article body below is the publisher's English rendering of the original Chinese article; figures, license numbers and institutional names follow the original.
In one sentence: the “four machines and one brain” is the collective name for televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, room air conditioners and microcomputers, and it was the set of subsidised categories fixed when the national e-waste treatment fund was established. Subsidies cover only these five because they have large installed bases, mature dismantling processes and measurable outputs, which makes per-unit verification practical.
1. Taking the Term Apart
The “four machines” are televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and room air conditioners; the “one brain” is the microcomputer. The phrase has circulated in the recycling industry for years, is easier to remember than the formal catalogue names, and has gradually become standard shorthand.
Behind the shorthand is catalogue-based management. The processing qualification established by the Regulations on the Administration of the Recovery and Treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products is approved category by category, so the colloquial name can be short while applications and verification must still use the formal names.
Note that the “one brain” usually covers both the host unit and the monitor. When a monitor is delivered on its own it must be judged as a monitor category; when a host unit is delivered, the mainboard, power supply and hard drive inside the case are all dismantling targets. A misclassified entry will later distort the verification of dismantling volumes.
2. What the Five Categories Have in Common
These five were not brought under management first by arbitrary choice; they share three characteristics.
- Large installed base — nearly every household and organisation has them, scrappage volumes are steady, and collection networks can support scaled dismantling.
- Dismantlable structure — the positions of the casing, compressor, motor and circuit board are relatively fixed, which suits assembly-line work.
- Measurable outputs — the iron, copper, aluminium and plastics recovered all have public market prices, making subsidy rates easy to calculate.
Small appliances, by contrast, come in many varieties with little material per unit, and in the early years lacked unified dismantling standards and an output pricing basis, so their inclusion in the subsidy system naturally came later.
3. How the Fund's Money Ties to Categories
The treatment fund is paid by producers and importers of electrical and electronic products in proportion to sales, goes into the central treasury, and is then distributed as subsidies to qualifying treatment enterprises. The objects of collection and the subsidised categories must correspond; otherwise money collected on one product would end up subsidising the dismantling of another.
The subsidy scope therefore follows the catalogue: only listed categories can enter the closed loop of fund collection and subsidy. The category declared by the enterprise, the category recorded in the ledger and the category on output sales documents must agree — this is where applications are most often returned. There is also a hard constraint at the distribution end: standardised collection and treatment volume carries 70% of the weighting, so the subsidy follows dismantled volume, not the number of categories.
4. Not “Only These,” but Phased Expansion
The catalogue is adjusted dynamically. As the collection system improved, monitors, printers, copiers, mobile phones and telephones were successively brought into scope. A wider scope of management does not mean a wider scope of subsidy: subsidised categories and rates are still governed by the documents issued by the competent authority.
For recycling companies this means keeping two sets of accounts apart: a dismantling ledger by catalogue category for regulatory reporting, and application data aggregated by subsidised category for funding claims. The statistical bases differ, and mixing them makes the position impossible to explain during verification. The threshold for 2026 applications is a standardised dismantling volume of no less than 800,000 units or sets per year; below that level the application channel does not open at all.
5. What It Means for Clients
An ordinary company disposing of old equipment does not need to study the subsidy rules, but it does need to know one thing: the five categories handed to a licensed dismantler enter the standardised dismantling statistics, while those handed to unqualified channels yield neither compliance documents nor any proof of destination.
If the organisation needs asset write-offs, ESG disclosure or audit evidence, the handover sheet should state the category and unit count clearly and a disposal certificate should be obtained. The more specific the category, the easier later reconciliation becomes. The counterparty's qualification can be checked directly on the certificate: Langfang Jinye Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. holds certificate No. E1310261, valid until January 8, 2027, with the approved categories listed item by item, and it is worth a look before delivery.
6. Practical Notes
- Sort into the five categories before delivery; do not mix televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and computers.
- Register computer host units and monitors separately to avoid confusion with the monitor category.
- Record the ledger under four headings — category, unit count, weight and origin — consistent with the handover sheet.
- Subsidised categories and rates follow the current documents of the competent authority; do not cite outdated versions.
- Where write-off or disclosure is required, obtain a disposal certificate stating the category and file it.