{"id":35789,"date":"2018-08-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-11-12T11:54:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T11:54:52","slug":"10789-q-a-china-s-waste-ban-debate-is-misinformed-and-one-dimensional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/pollution\/10789-q-a-china-s-waste-ban-debate-is-misinformed-and-one-dimensional\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: China’s waste ban debate is ‘misinformed’ and ‘one-dimensional’"},"content":{"rendered":"

China faces a shortfall<\/a> of\u00a0millions of tonnes of raw materials after placing restrictions on foreign waste imports at the start of this year.<\/p>\n

But rather than drown in rubbish rejected by China\u2019s port authorities, neighbouring countries in the region \u2013 such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia \u2013\u00a0could in fact be benefiting from the increased availability of cheap recyclable materials.<\/p>\n

At first glance, China\u2019s decision to restrict imports of 26 types of foreign plastic and paper seemed like a boon for the environment, when announced at a World Trade Forum in July 2016.<\/p>\n

Finally, Western countries would be forced to stop \u201cdumping\u201d on China, said the press<\/a>, and take responsibility for their own rubbish. Optimists predicted an overhaul of waste disposal systems. In the United States and Europe\u00a0companies promised to \u201cdesign<\/a>\u201d waste out of their supply chains.<\/p>\n

But in reality the big waste exporters were ill-equipped to respond to the change.\u00a0Rubbish containers were rerouted to poorer neighbouring countries that lack the infrastructure to process it, while Chinese manufacturers have relocated. So, eight months after the restrictions came into force what has been the effect?<\/p>\n

Adam Minter is an American journalist and author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade.<\/em> He was based in China for over a decade, reporting on recycling for Bloomberg<\/em>, before moving to Malaysia. He argues that China has not been turning away useless junk but instead valuable scrap, which supplies the recycling and manufacturing sectors that underpin the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Middlehurst:<\/strong> You <\/strong>argue<\/strong><\/a> that China\u2019s ban on foreign waste might not be good news for the environment. How so?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam Minter:<\/strong> The new restrictions<\/a>, which are effectively bans, are spoken of in a zero-sum sense. Banning an import of recyclables is not something that occurs in a vacuum. If you\u2019re not using recyclable raw materials (and that\u2019s what China has banned) you force companies to use virgin materials. It requires far less energy to produce an equal volume of recycled material than a virgin one.<\/p>\n

In aluminium, you\u2019re talking about a 90% energy input saving. In 2020 we\u2019re likely going to see China\u2019s ban hit aluminium scrap as well, so not only are you digging a hole in the ground in Tibet to get that material out, you\u2019re also consuming and producing more carbon. The carbon emissions for plastics and paper aren\u2019t as significant as they are for aluminium because aluminium is so energy intensive. But they\u2019re still significant.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a huge uptick in Chinese interest in virgin plastics, and liquefied natural gas produced in Houston, Texas, the petrol chemical capital of the US. Why? Because [Chinese companies] can\u2019t get the imported recyclables in stock.<\/p>\n

I was in Chengdu in December at a paper recycling conference where a trade association candidly said that they\u2019re facing a shortfall of at least 5 million metric tonnes in raw materials.<\/p>\n

If they can\u2019t get any recyclables then they\u2019re going to get it elsewhere, and that could be from trees, or from straw, which is very environmentally destructive.<\/p>\n

The overall dialogue around this has been really misinformed and one-dimensional. Recycling in China has never been about dumping. Someone pays for every scrap of recycling that gets imported into China. I\u2019ve been covering this since 2002 and I\u2019m yet to meet someone who pays for a pile of garbage.<\/p>\n

Charlotte: Turning to virgin raw materials seems to clash with China\u2019s efforts to move towards a\u00a0sustainable and energy efficiency economy. So, was this foreseen and is this a price worth paying to advance a longer-term ambition to improve domestic waste processing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam:<\/strong> Since the mid-2000s China\u2019s government has tended to favour the virgin materials industry more than the recycling industry, and for an obvious reason. The virgin materials industry and the big mining and steel companies are state-owned entities, and the recycling industry is largely private. So, this is really a continuation of that policy.<\/p>\n

Whenever the government wants to crack down on steel production, they do so on the private mills in smaller cities in China that are recycling steel, and that\u2019s been a long-term problem. Under Xi Jinping, the state-owned enterprises are increasingly favoured.<\/p>\n

Second, I think there\u2019s nationalist sentiment behind this. Rhetoric surrounding foreigners ‘dumping’\u00a0waste really can inflame passions.<\/p>\n

The third issue at stake is that China really does want to see its cities start recycling. It wants to spur a domestic recycling industry, which isn\u2019t so easy when you\u2019re competing again foreign imports.<\/p>\n

The Chinese government will tell you that\u00a0foreign imports are seriously contaminated. That\u2019s an exaggeration. Actually at this point in 2018 China\u2019s imports have never been cleaner, and that\u2019s partly due to crackdowns leading back to 2012.<\/p>\n

Foreign recycling is immaculate compared to what is being generated in Chinese cities.<\/p>\n

Charlotte: Since the restrictions came into force (on January 1, 2018) it has been reported that Southeast Asia has been picking up the slack and is overwhelmed with waste. But you\u2019ve written that the ban is good news for these economies. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam:<\/strong> Countries in Southeast Asia have labour and regulatory resources and a desire to grow economically. If you\u2019re suddenly dumping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of raw materials into a country, inevitably you\u2019re going to see economies grow up around that.<\/p>\n

Some of that is happening right now in Malaysia. We\u2019ve seen a huge percentage of southern China non-ferrous metal recycling relocate in areas outside of Kuala Lumpur and Johor in southern Malaysia.<\/p>\n

In the mid-term, 2-5 years, you\u2019re going to see some other capacities grow up in these developed regions that were exporting before. There was an announcement of a half-billion dollar paper mill in Wisconsin designed to take the kind of paper that was being exported to China. The US has\u00a0only had small capacities for mixed paper because it was so cheap to ship paper to China, the prices were good. Well, now that market is gone. So that\u2019ll be really good for Wisconsin and in a sense it\u2019ll be China\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

Charlotte:<\/strong> There\u2019s been a lot of emphasis on single use plastics like straws and plastic bags. But manufacturers are saying banning the bags won\u2019t fix the problem and could lead to more pollution. What\u2019s the solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam:<\/strong> If the goal is to prevent the accumulation of ocean plastics \u2013 and we\u2019ve all seen the videos of that turtle<\/a> \u2013 then banning single use plastics in developed countries will make absolutely no difference. The standard Jenna Jambeck study<\/a>\u00a0has some really interesting data points on the sources of ocean plastic.<\/p>\n

In the study they found that eight Asian countries, including China, account for 63% of ocean plastics. Whereas in the US, where we get all this attention, it\u2019s just 2%. A bag in the United States is not going to make a bit of difference.<\/p>\n

The much better solution to these problems is to improve trash collection by actually collecting the trash. So many coastal countries just don\u2019t have trash collection. Step two is improving the landfill, incinerators<\/a> and the recycling process. I think banning items is just a distraction and it\u2019s not realistic in fast-growing economies where you have fast-growing plastic waste, and where they want their chance to consume.<\/p>\n

Charlotte: Taxing plastics is the other approach. In the UK a 5p tax on plastic bags has led to a 90% fall in consumer usage. Should consumers pay for the luxury of a disposable lifestyle?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think it works especially well in developing countries. For example, in Indonesia, there\u2019s been talk for several years of a single use plastic tax and taxes on bottles. But if you\u2019re an average consumer it\u2019s a terrible idea because most Indonesians, well over 50%, don\u2019t have access to clean water in their homes. They\u2019re highly dependent on bottled water.<\/p>\n

Whether people like to hear it or not, single use plastics improve lives in developing nations, and until those developing nations are developed nations, I think we\u2019d all be better served by giving them better waste management than telling them \u2018no, you can\u2019t have it\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Minter says limits on foreign ‘trash’ have created a multimillion tonne shortfall in raw materials<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2204,"featured_media":60169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[760],"tags":[578],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-35789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pollution","tag-plastics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQ&A: China's waste ban debate is 'misinformed' and 'one-dimensional' | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Adam Minter says limits on foreign 'trash' have created a multimillion tonne shortfall in raw materials\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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