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Plastics Pile Up as China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling
- junkscience2017 9y agoWALL-E
- rinka_singh 9y agoClassic example of Whataboutism: Is plastic waste from overseas “the reason why you can’t see blue skies in China?” he asked. “I don’t think so. Go fight the big battles, not the small battles.” Way to go China!!! We - all of us need to optimize our manufacturing and consumption systems to reduce and eliminate waste.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoIt probably plays a role in soil pollution and ground water contamination, china has more than just air pollution problems. China should have put a stop to this a long time ago, they also drove more expensive but more responsible options out of business. Eventually, the WTO is going to have a consider environmental impact as a reason to restrict trade.
- Analemma_ 9y agoI think this can only be a good thing. A depressing percentage of people have no idea that "recycling" is, for the most part, a lie, and that up until now most things you "recycled" just went in a dump like everything else, except it was a dump in China. A wake-up call as to the reality of the situation should encourage better practices.
- quotemstr 9y ago"Recycling is largely ineffective for substances that aren't aluminum" is just the tip of the iceberg as far as truths we never mention in polite company. I'm looking forward to a phase change into a society that's more honest with itself.
- QAPereo 9y agoAnd glass. And steel. And precious metals. As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?
- convolvatron 9y agodon't forget copper and alloys of it. and reclaimed woods that we can't afford to grow any longer. and wood fiber products. and hdpe. and lead. no. its not like we can really close the loop, but there are a lot of things that are perfectly viable to melt down and reuse. in my shop, and quite a lot of others, we have a crucible and a rolling mill for metal scraps of any sufficiently valuable material.
- ars 9y ago> and reclaimed woods that we can't afford to grow any longer. and wood fiber products. and hdpe. Copper (all metal) yes. But reclaimed wood costs more than alternatives. I looked into it once - the premium I would have to pay to keep wood out of a landfill was just unrealistic. Wood fiber is only worth it from industrial plants that create it in quantity, and without contaminants. HDPE is not worth recycling - it costs more than just making it fresh. I propose just burn it for energy (and thus reduce oil use). Then use that oil to make other HDPE. The lifecycle works out better that way.
- quotemstr 9y agoYou're right. Scrap metal collection, architectural salvage, and so on are all important forms of reuse. I was being a little glib and talking mostly about the kind of multiple-plastic-bin consumer goods recycling that's most visible.
- ars 9y agoNot glass. Yes metal. Glass is so worthless for recycling, all they do with it is crush it and use it to cover landfill each night to keep down rodents and dust. That's considered "recycled". > As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia? For some reason greenwashing is really prevalent among people who should know better (policy makers, scientists, environmentalists). And regular people desperately want recycling to be a real thing so that they feel better about themself. It's a perfect match, leading to the situation we have now.
- adrianN 9y agoThere is a reason why "recycle" comes last in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Unfortunately "Reduce" and "Reuse" are bad for the economy...
- emj 9y agoI wish it was possible to create a tax that would make reduce and reuse more profitable, I think EU has a legislation that makes producers responsible for recycling their products and packing material maybe extend that. It feels ripe for abuse.
- Endy 9y agoThe way one ecology prof I had put it was along the line of, "The marketing guys wasted a lot of paper and plastic and ink to come up with the slogan 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' - and all the producers heard was "RECYCLE, Reuse, reduce" - with that last word being whispered. He then went on to talk about waste materials, about food waste and the related ecological damage, the lack of composting, and similar topics. American business doesn't work if people are encouraged to reduce (or as the average American will see it, 'deprive' ourselves). Reusing means that less products get sold, so the producers create one-use items with guaranteed obsolescence, and then slap a licensing agreement on top so that you don't actually own the item you paid for. And people wonder why I'm anti-corporate.
- fullstackwebdev 9y agothere is a technology available called thermal depolymerization that can convert some of this into energy. I could never figure out if it was not net positive for the only reason it isn't done. Even if it isn't net positive, if they placed the recycling center near an area with surplus electricity, and melt it down into some fuel on low peaks, I think that would be a positive. Would somebody please tell me if its feasible? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
- AstralStorm 9y agoYes, but produces nasty pollution, often chemical and hard to scrub. Consider it a version 2 of usual burning.
- 123ol12313 9y agoThis is a good thing. Sweeping garbage under the rug is not the solution. Plastic takes ridiculously long to decompose.
- j_s 9y agoAnother article on this topic was discussed last month; I look forward to further updates on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888827 Recycling Chaos in U.S. As China Bans 'Foreign Waste' (npr.org) 318 points by srameshc 39 days ago | 233 comments It sounds like recycling will be going to the dump until someone is willing to process it for slightly less money.
- ISL 9y agoUntil environmentalists sue on the grounds that our "Recycle bin" should be getting recycled (as it should). I've been grazing for US and non-Chinese recyclers in which to invest, but haven't yet found any good values.
- RyanShook 9y agoI think this is a sign of things to come. The developed world has become so used to benefitting from China’s willingness to take our trash, dangerous labor and low paying work that we’re outraged and shocked when they decide they no longer have to.
- adrianN 9y agoThere is always Africa if China becomes too developed to do the dirty work. And maybe robots, eventually.
- jacobush 9y agoWhy do you think China invests in Africa?
- ars 9y agoWe could just landfill our trash. But then we would feel bad about ourself. China doesn't want that - they want us buying lots and lots of stuff. i.e. China benefits from this more than we do. Clearly China has new plans, or they feel we are so used to buying things we're not going to stop.
- amrx101 9y agoAdd India and Bangladesh.
- mc32 9y ago> that we’re outraged and shocked when they decide they no longer have to. Who's outraged? Maybe some places were caught by surprise at the change in policy (perh no fair warning), but I don't recall any outrage. It's their right to refuse. I mean, its a bit different from say OPEC in the 70s suddenly artificially constraining supply --no one would like the US to constrain wheat or corn exports for example. But this is altogether different. It's probably a good thing as people may be forced to think more in a cradle-to-grave product life-cycle and thus make things with that built-in. Given the added costs, it may well bring a few jobs back home to boot.
- ggm 9y agoThe relationship between this article, and the one on the end of cheap clothes in charity/goodwill shops into the supply chain for "shoddy" comes to mind
- jngreenlee 9y agoCan you link to the Goodwill article please?
- gumby 9y ago> Every year, Britain sends China enough recyclables to fill up 10,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Greenpeace U.K. The United States exports more than 13.2 million tons of scrap paper and 1.42 m... Wait, so is it volume or weight? Aren’t editors supposed to catch this stuff? At least the Olympic swimming pool and short ton are official units in some jurisdictions: https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-conv...
- dao- 9y agoTrash has both volume and weight. It's not either-or in the cited sentences, and the two numbers aren't supposed to be directly comparable nor convertible.
- mc32 9y agoOk, sure, but why have the reader try to do the conversion when they, the writers, should "standardize" for the reader so as to let them read on without interrupting their thought processing.
- dao- 9y agoLike I said, it wasn't supposed to be directly convertible. The point of these sentences was that the UK and the US produce gigantic amounts of waste. That's it. Who of the two is worse is besides the point, and absolute numbers would only tell part of the story anyway. Since the US is much bigger, we already know it produces more waste. Edited to add: The sentences also talk about different kinds of waste. Apples to oranges really. There's no point in converting.
- Spooky23 9y agoHow many Libraries of Congress is that?
- Simulacra 9y agoPerhaps this will spur American innovation to recycle reduce plastic domestically.
- siquick 9y agoThe American innovators are too busy figuring out ways to make people click more ads or to blow people up. /s (kind of)
- adventured 9y agoOr, you know, building numerous space launch and transport systems (Boeing, SpaceX, Blue Origin) to go to the moon again and Mars. Figuring out how to cure disease with CRISPR. Editas, Intellia, Crispr Therapeutics, and The Broad Institute, all just in Boston. Leading the world in artificial intelligence, with only China as a close competitor, and everyone else dramatically far behind. Leading the world in cloud computing and cloud software broadly, with only China as a close competitor, and everyone else dramatically far behind. What are Europe's ten largest technology companies again? I really can't recall. Leading the world, along with China, on everything mobile. There are no close competitors anywhere except for Samsung. Leading the world in electric vehicles and driverless vehicle technology. Leading the world in biotech, basically across the board. There are one or two major competitors in Europe doing interesting things in biotech (using US technology purchased from the likes of Genentech, InterMune, Genzyme, etc), and that's it. Dominating pretty much every segment of technology in every country that isn't named China. In fact, dominating to such a hilarious degree, the world has to aggressively try to curb the US tech hegemony because it's too overwhelming. Or you know, sure, figuring out ad clicking. Yeah, that's it.
- mping 9y agoYou forgot leading the world in inequality and healthcare costs. For me, far far more important than going to the moon or making a car drive itself.
- tengbretson 9y ago
- ktta 9y agoList of what is being banned for import is here: https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/TBTN17/CHN1211.pdf https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename... Plastic seems to be the important part, and 'unsorted paper' is a bit vague. So I'm thinking bulk of the paper/cardboard products atleast are unaffected.
- emj 9y agoYou sort out newspaper and officepaper which is pretty ok to recycle by themselves. A mix of those and e.g. glossy magazines is pretty hard to recycle, more or less like plastic you need one type of clean plastic to get good recycled plastic.
- drdrey 9y agoIs it weird that we take throwing stuff away in the trash for granted? We know that whatever we throw in there (for free) will end up in a landfill or incinerated, and somehow that's okay? I find it hard to tell that to my kids with a straight face
- guelo 9y agofor free? In all USA cities I have lived there is a fee for residential trash pickup.
- fyfy18 9y agoIn most European countries it’s paid for by taxes, so you have no ideal what the real cost is.
- drdrey 9y agoYeah 'for free' is a bit of a stretch, I was thinking more about public trash cans than residential. Still, the idea is you can throw away pretty much whatever, no questions asked, and someone will put it away so you don't have to think about what happens to it
- jarcoal 9y agoIt’s embarrassing and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing such incredible waste to become an acceptable part of our lives.
- otempomores 9y agoTurns out shame does not solve the problem. Thus prostitution and the church can happily coexist in the town. Shame is just another attention power buisness model. Research into cheaper recycling would be something. Lets assume i have a long upright concrete pipe i dump unsorted waste in.. How to decompose plastics and wash out valuables without too much money involved.
- otempomores 9y agoOkay..lets play along. Im a captain with a ship filled with plastic waste. Im supposed to go to China for recycling - but i could also dump my freight in open water- save alot of fuel and do another 'roundtrip'. Outsourcing recycling was stupid from the getgo. To many stations where corners could be cut.
- blondie9x 9y agoWe need to get off plastic. Gotta stop using plastic bags. And all plastic disposables that aren't biodegradable. Reusable bottles and storage containers are absolutely essential.
- AstralStorm 9y agoPlastic bags are perfectly fine, as long as they are sturdy and can be used multiple times. Mandate minimum thickness and price perhaps? Only fabric bags are better. Paper bags are about as bad as single use plastic ones. They take a lot of water to produce and energy to mill. The only difference is they are more biodegradable in a landfill. This id's similar to situation with plastic vs glass bottles. Sturdy plastic ones are better, but since three is no mandate to standardize and make them sturdy, they get recycled instead of reused. That costs a lot of energy. (Though less than recycling glass.)
- fouc 9y agoI feel that the first person to automate recycling and "mining" of trash at a large scale will make a lot of money. And do the world a huge favour.
- fyfy18 9y agoDoes anyone know why more countries haven’t taken a stance like Germany with glass bottles? For those who aren’t aware, in Germany there are standard glass bottle shapes that are used for beer and soft drinks. Instead of being recycled, the bottle is cleaned, refilled and relabelled - most likely by a different producer. The bottles can be reused up to 50 times. A lot of countries have the infrastructure of refunding a deposit when a bottle is returned, but it sounds like most of those are just going to end up in a landfill.
- siberianbear 9y agoThe United States used to have this for soft drinks. I remember taking my father's empty Dr. Pepper bottles back to the supermarket for gas money as a teenager. The rebate (just a refund of what you paid for it when you bought it) was about $1 per eight-pack of bottles... this was around 1990 or so. I remember how heavy and sturdy these re-usable bottles were. This was phased out sometime in the 1990s. I guess it was just too costly for the bottlers.
- JeanMarcS 9y agoSame in France where when I was young (late 70’s until mid 80’s) you could return your glass bottles and exchange for money. But then PET bottles start to rise and the returnable policies eventually disappeared in most country.
- dagw 9y agoHere in Sweden at least you can return PET bottles for money (about 0.10-0.20€).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- snaily 9y agoThe bottles in current PET refund programs in Sweden are recycled as raw plastic. The old 1.5L (4 SEK, ~€0.50 refund) PET bottles that existed in the 90s were refilled, though.
- tmaly 9y agoI would love to see packaging switch to corn based plastics or maybe some other type where the plastic would decompose faster.
- bob_theslob646 9y agoUnfortunately most likely not going to happen because of how cheap plastic is. Fortunately though there is some interesting research in how to break it down. "From garbage to gold: How advances in plastic recycling can help save the environment"[https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/06/advances-recycling-save-environment/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/06/advances-recyclin...] (https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/06/27/ibm-research-scientists-in-san-jose-find-new-way-to-recycle-plastic/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/06/27/ibm-research-scientis...) >On Monday, IBM Research said that scientists from the Almaden lab found a way to transform polycarbonates into a stronger type of plastic that doesn’t leach BPA, a chemical that has sparked health concerns in recent years.
- lobo_tuerto 9y agoI think a more appropriate title would read something like: "... China refuses to take the West's trash anymore"