China’s Refusal to Accept “Foreign Garbage” for Two Years Marks a Significant Change in Global Waste Management

Currently, states across the United States are seeking more comprehensive and domestic approaches to expand new markets for waste recycling, improve processing infrastructure, and conduct environmental awareness campaigns to reduce pollution.

According to data from the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), as of October, plastic waste exports from the United States to mainland China have decreased by 89% since the beginning of 2017, and waste paper exports have decreased by 96%. During this period, the total amount of plastic waste exported by the United States to all countries has decreased by 64%, and waste paper exports have decreased by 42%.

The United States is feeling “tremendous pressure” on waste disposal issues. However, a spokesperson for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admitted, “The challenges faced by the U.S. recycling system today are not due to import restrictions imposed by China and other countries. Instead, they have exposed the issues with how we managed recycled materials in the United States.”

Meanwhile, countries such as Japan, France, and the United Kingdom are also beginning to re-examine waste recycling as a major issue.

A waste processing plant in Texas, USA. Photo: The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal reported in September that this year, at least 10 states in the United States have passed or enacted multiple laws related to recycling management.

The article stated, “Two years ago, when China stopped accepting millions of tons of waste, it brought the U.S. recycling industry to a peak.”

California, which exports two-thirds of its recyclable waste overseas, has set a target to reduce, reuse, or recycle 75% of disposable plastics by 2030, create end markets, and implement more uniform recycling policies in cities.

Since 2017, Massachusetts has provided nearly $1 million in funding to 28 communities to improve local recycling plans and launched a statewide education program last year. The state’s promotional campaign has reduced non-compliant recycling garbage by 30% to 80%.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the 19th that currently, New York City is spending $500,000 on advertising to reduce the pollution rate from the current 25% to 10%.

In the past, many Americans did not have the habit of garbage classification, so different waste materials had to be sorted out before processing, and many papers were too wet, and plastics were covered with food and grease, making them impossible to recycle.

To improve this situation, Philadelphia, USA, has sent staff to inform residents how to classify garbage, and put lids on garbage bins to prevent papers from getting wet in the rain.

This summer, Philadelphia has placed advertisements at bus stops and on the radio, urging people not to throw plastic bags into recyclable garbage bins, “take a minute (to think) before throwing trash into the bin,” and “if in doubt, don’t throw it in.”

Related images of Philadelphia’s environmental advertisements calling for garbage recycling classification

This year, the waste contractor in Fragaestaff, USA, no longer accepts five types of plastics, including yogurt cans and flip-top food containers, because they cannot be sold. The city is also calling on social media to encourage about 70,000 local residents to put only recyclable waste such as bottles, water bottles, and cans into recyclable garbage bins.

Fragaestaff also announced that workers will begin checking residents’ recyclable garbage bins. If there are misplaced garbage, they will be labeled “Oops” and will not be recycled. Last year’s trial of this measure reduced the amount of non-recyclable waste in recycling bins by 40%.

After China’s ban and restrictions, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have also encountered waste disposal problems. Japan’s recycling agencies have begun hoarding waste. Hiroaki Kaneko, deputy director in charge of recycling affairs at the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, said Japan has accumulated 500,000 tons of plastic waste in the past year.

Plastic collected in Tokyo, Japan

As the world’s second-largest exporter of plastic waste after the United States, Japan is currently trying to encourage the development of domestic waste treatment industries and has allocated billions of yen in funds for this purpose, providing subsidies to private companies for plastic recycling machines.

Recycling company Daiei Kankyo in Kobe recently applied for government subsidies and is expected to open a new factory to double its waste processing capacity to about 30,000 tons per year. Japanese plastic waste exporter Asei Co. has also relocated plastic pellet production from its factory in Shanghai to Japan and has invested approximately 500 million yen to build two new factories in Tokyo.

In addition, Simon Ellin, chief executive of the Recycling Association of the United Kingdom, said, “We are rapidly entering a crisis where we do not have the market capacity to digest recycled materials, and (recycled material) prices have plummeted.”

The United Kingdom is burning more garbage, including dirty or low-value recyclable waste. According to UK government data, the UK’s waste incineration and recycling rate is currently approximately 42%. In the past year, garbage incineration increased from 10.8 million tons to 10.2 million tons, while garbage recycling decreased from 11.3 million tons to 10.9 million tons.

A waste paper contractor in London, Paper Round, has begun asking customers to stop putting plastic film into garbage bins for collecting recyclables. Bill Swan, managing director of the company, said, “China’s ban shows that we can no longer export ‘problems’ abroad.”

He said Paper Round’s buyers have now greatly raised their standards, such as checking humidity that affects the quality of paper.

In July 2017, the General Office of the State Council of China issued the “Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Implementation Plan for Prohibiting the Entry of ‘Foreign Garbage’ and Promoting the Reform of the Management System of Imported Solid Waste.” China adjusted 24 kinds of solid “foreign garbage,” including waste plastics and waste paper, into the “Catalogue of Solid Waste Import Prohibition.”

On December 18 of the same year, China formally notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it would no longer accept foreign garbage. China’s documents submitted to the WTO stated that generally recyclable solid waste is often mixed with a considerable number of highly polluting wastes and hazardous wastes, which pollute China’s environment. In order to protect the environment and people’s health, China will adjust waste import regulations and refuse to accept highly polluting solid waste.

Starting from January 1, 2018, China officially implemented the “foreign garbage” ban, which has been in effect for nearly two years now.