Trash addiction

“The Chinese have been doing us a really big favour for a really long time,” science writer Liam Mannix told Australia’s Fairfax Media. “They’ve been taking huge amounts of our contaminated recycling. They’ve even been paying us for it.”

That ended in January 2018, however, when China decided no longer to import foreign garbage. This has caused a crisis in Australia: no more cheap trash disposal.

Back in 2011, China was buying up more and more contaminated waste from “down under”, thinking it could use the raw materials. But now, citing the harmful substances that the waste contains, it has blocked such imports. As a result, across Australia, paper, plastic and glass, along with contaminants such as leftover food and some plastics that are hard to recycle, are stacking up at recycling centres. It’s a national mess.

What’s next? Several costly options are on the table, such as building new plants to burn the waste. The easy answer is to put it all into landfill, which the Australian Council of Recycling wants very much to prevent. It hopes an increase in landfill levies plus investment in recycling strategies will put the nation on to a more constructive track.