3 ms·

The developed countries send their plastic to developing countries to be "recycled" and then it ends up in the ocean. So ultimately, a ban in a foreign land act

• gruez 6y ago
  >The developed countries send their plastic to developing countries to be "recycled" and then it ends up in the ocean That statement might be broadly true, but I doubt that it's accurate for plastic bags. For china at least, only around 10% of their total waste is imported[1], so blaming it all on developed countries is questionable. The data is from before the ban, by the way. I'm not sure what you're implying by putting "recycled" in quotes, but they're not definitely taking the plastic and dumping it into their rivers. They're paying us for the plastic[2], not the other way around. Plastic bags can't even be recycled in most jurisdictions, so it's unclear how they'd be imported into those developing countries in the first place. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#how-much-plastic-waste-did-china-import https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#how-much-plasti... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/623972937/china-has-refused-to-recycle-the-wests-plastics-what-now https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/6239729...