5 ms·

So you are claiming China paid money for recycling waste and then threw it straight in the ocean? Seems incredibly implausible.

by A2017U1 8y ago

chrisco255 8y ago
Nah we paid China to "recycle" trash. And instead of actually recycling they just pocketed the money and dumped it.
- thereare5lights 8y ago
  That makes no sense. If they were doing that, why would they stop taking free money.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    The piles of trash grew too big. The money wasn't worth it any more.
    - thereare5lights 8y ago
      Grew too big for the ocean? What?
- A2017U1 8y ago
  Can you provide a source for that claim? Id happily wager net payments are huge and going in the other direction.
calt 8y ago
They got paid money to take the plastic off our hands and recycle it, not the other way around.
robjan 8y ago
China was usually paid money to deal with the waste
- riffraff 8y ago
  it was not, china paid to buy plastic and recycle it. Then, oddly enough, it sold it back to the west. The current situation is that they stopped doing that because it's not economic anymore (and some "green backlash"). If they were just being payed to buy plastic and dump it in the rivers there would be no problem in continuing to do that.
kirkules 8y ago
I think the claim is rather that China got paid for taking recycling waste and then did that.
Ultramanoid 8y ago
I am not saying such thing. Quite the opposite. First of all, China was paid to receive it. And I am pointing to the fact that the Western plastic waste problem ( to the point of the comment saying if you're in the West, whatever happens in China is not something to feel guilty about ), is not limited to the West, when for processing it is sent to Asia.
- A2017U1 8y ago
  > First of all, China was paid to receive it. That is completely wrong, you'll need to provide evidence here, it's strange so many replies say the same. China pays for their recycling imports and get a good deal on shipping. Current tariff wars have changed this environment and now they won't take it. California alone earns billions selling waste to them > In 2016, California’s exports of recyclables amounted to 15 million tons, worth an estimated $4.6 billion. Some 62 percent of that exported material went to China in 2016 https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fallout-shaking-recycling-california/ https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fal...
  - Ultramanoid 8y ago
    Tariffs are not an issue between China and the EU / Japan as they are with the U.S., that has little to do with China's decision to ban imports of trash globally. You pay recycling companies to process waste, and the cost of doing so locally in the U.S. now after the Chinese ban is so high that it means cities cannot afford it, thus waste that would have been sent to China for recycling is now piling in landfills or being burnt. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...
    - DougBTX 8y ago
      That article contradicts your assertion that “China was paid to receive it”, it says, “Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton.“
Theodores 8y ago
They had lots of poor people and their children separate it, wash it and slice it up into lots of strips that then get compressed together into bundles of 'raw feedstock'. In this process lots gets washed away, the local water is no longer drinkable (so they have to buy water to drink from trucks that do the rounds). Any guesses where the river leads to? The ocean. Also many plastics are hard to identify. So you were having kids with lighters burn a bit of that microwave tray (in black) to sniff it and then guess what the rest of the tray was made of. Then it would be put in one of the twenty or so piles of different types of plastic. The Chinese President saw the film about all of this banned the imports and banned the film. That is how we got here. The bit you didn't see (because the film was band) is how water intensive the process is. The leftover food on the microwaved tray does not clean itself. When it has been sliced up into lots of small pieces, washed and compressed into some block of recyclable stuff you get bits of it washed away to end up eventually in the ocean, even if it blights local fields first before the rains come.

So you are claiming China paid money for recycling waste and then threw it straight in the ocean? Seems incredibly implausible.

chrisco255 8y ago

Nah we paid China to "recycle" trash. And instead of actually recycling they just pocketed the money and dumped it.

thereare5lights 8y ago
That makes no sense. If they were doing that, why would they stop taking free money.
- onion2k 8y ago
  The piles of trash grew too big. The money wasn't worth it any more.
  - thereare5lights 8y ago
    Grew too big for the ocean? What?
A2017U1 8y ago
Can you provide a source for that claim? Id happily wager net payments are huge and going in the other direction.

calt 8y ago

They got paid money to take the plastic off our hands and recycle it, not the other way around.

robjan 8y ago

China was usually paid money to deal with the waste

riffraff 8y ago
it was not, china paid to buy plastic and recycle it. Then, oddly enough, it sold it back to the west. The current situation is that they stopped doing that because it's not economic anymore (and some "green backlash"). If they were just being payed to buy plastic and dump it in the rivers there would be no problem in continuing to do that.

kirkules 8y ago

I think the claim is rather that China got paid for taking recycling waste and then did that.

Ultramanoid 8y ago

I am not saying such thing. Quite the opposite. First of all, China was paid to receive it. And I am pointing to the fact that the Western plastic waste problem ( to the point of the comment saying if you're in the West, whatever happens in China is not something to feel guilty about ), is not limited to the West, when for processing it is sent to Asia.

A2017U1 8y ago
> First of all, China was paid to receive it. That is completely wrong, you'll need to provide evidence here, it's strange so many replies say the same. China pays for their recycling imports and get a good deal on shipping. Current tariff wars have changed this environment and now they won't take it. California alone earns billions selling waste to them > In 2016, California’s exports of recyclables amounted to 15 million tons, worth an estimated $4.6 billion. Some 62 percent of that exported material went to China in 2016 https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fallout-shaking-recycling-california/ https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/01/24/china-fal...
- Ultramanoid 8y ago
  Tariffs are not an issue between China and the EU / Japan as they are with the U.S., that has little to do with China's decision to ban imports of trash globally. You pay recycling companies to process waste, and the cost of doing so locally in the U.S. now after the Chinese ban is so high that it means cities cannot afford it, thus waste that would have been sent to China for recycling is now piling in landfills or being burnt. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...
  - DougBTX 8y ago
    That article contradicts your assertion that “China was paid to receive it”, it says, “Franklin could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton.“

Theodores 8y ago

They had lots of poor people and their children separate it, wash it and slice it up into lots of strips that then get compressed together into bundles of 'raw feedstock'. In this process lots gets washed away, the local water is no longer drinkable (so they have to buy water to drink from trucks that do the rounds). Any guesses where the river leads to? The ocean. Also many plastics are hard to identify. So you were having kids with lighters burn a bit of that microwave tray (in black) to sniff it and then guess what the rest of the tray was made of. Then it would be put in one of the twenty or so piles of different types of plastic. The Chinese President saw the film about all of this banned the imports and banned the film. That is how we got here. The bit you didn't see (because the film was band) is how water intensive the process is. The leftover food on the microwaved tray does not clean itself. When it has been sliced up into lots of small pieces, washed and compressed into some block of recyclable stuff you get bits of it washed away to end up eventually in the ocean, even if it blights local fields first before the rains come.