New Zealand to invest more in recycling after China ban

New Zealand is planning to invest more in recycling plants and set up a government-led taskforce to work out how to grapple with the fallout from China’s ban on waste imports, its associate environment minister said.

New Zealand had been sending 15 million kilograms of waste to China every year, worth around NZ$21 million ($14.67 million), which mostly contained paper and plastics that were piling up as waste companies scrambled to divert it to processors in Southeast Asia.

“The ban has had a greater impact than the industry expected and we need a coordinated response from central and local governments, together with the waste and business sectors,” Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage said.

The government plans to use its existing waste levy to invest in more onshore recycling plants, she added.

China, the world’s biggest importer of plastic waste, has stopped accepting shipments of rubbish, such as plastic and paper, as part of a campaign against “foreign garbage.”

The ban has upended the world’s waste handling supply chain and caused massive pileups of trash from Asia to Europe, as exporters struggle to find new buyers of the garbage.

Much of New Zealand’s waste had been diverted to processing plants in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, but some stockpiles were building up around the country.

Governments in Britain, other EU countries and Australia have announced plans to confront growing waste as a result of the ban, with the British introducing a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and the EU mulling over plastic tax.