PLASTIC WASTE Who will recycle it post-China?
With China banning the import of plastic waste, who will bear the burden of recycling the world's toxic scrap?
STREETS ACROSS the UK were lined up with plastic waste this January. So severe was the problem that Simon Ellin, chief executive of the UK Recycling Association, the country’s largest network of independent waste and recycling operators, issued a media statement and called for “urgent action”.
The cause behind the pile up is a ban by China on the import of plastic waste. Before the ban, which became effective on January 1, China was the largest importer of plastic waste in the world. It used to transport products made from recycled plastic back to the countries from where the waste was imported. Citing environment and health concerns at the World Trade Organization in July 2017, China announced that it would stop import of 24 kinds of wastes, five of which were different types of plastic.
According to a 2014 report of Viennabased non-profit International Solid Waste Association (iswa), the annual volume of globally traded waste plastics was around 15 million tonnes, and China imported 56 per cent of this. The US was the largest source of plastic waste to China, accounting for 21 per cent of the country’s total import, followed by Japan (18 per cent), Germany (12 per cent) and the UK (9 per cent). Europe was the major exporter, with at least 87 per cent of its plastic ending up in China.
The aftershocks
Though the China notification was announced six months ago, most countries did not take preparatory actions. “It looked like the waste management industry and world
governments were hoping that China would change its mind,” Tisha Brown, oceans team, Greenpeace UK told Down To Earth (dte). As a result, the impact of the ban is being felt across the globe.
“Even though there are some recycling facilities in Europe, they do not have enough processing capacity,” Pablo Leon, Asia manager for Madrid–based plastic recycling company Fosimpe SL, told dte. Same is the case with the US. “We have seen a decline in paper and plastics recycling with some municipalities around the US already having stopped collecting certain plastics [because they can no longer send it to China],” Adina Renee Adler, senior director at Washingtonbased International Scrap Recycling Institute (isri) told dte. isri is a network of 1,300 firms operating at 4,000 locations in the US and in 34 nations.
According to isri, the US exported plastics to over 90 countries. To China alone the export was more than 775 tonnes. Of the total scrap produced, the US could recycle only about 3.5 tonnes in 2014. This shows the volume of waste the US dumps in other countries for recycling.
“The closure of China’s market would also affect US jobs and government revenue,” states a 2017 report of The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. According to isri, 40,000 US jobs are directly supported by waste and scrap exports and 94,000 are indirectly supported.
The ban has also had repercussions in New Zealand. On January 21, the country’s associate minister for environment,Eugenie Sage, told the press that China’s ban had created significant challenges for plastic recycling companies and she expected them to turn to Indonesia for their recycling needs.
In Japan, the government has used financial mechanisms to deal with the problem. “In response to China’s import ban, the Japanese ministry of environment has started subsidy for plastics recycling companies to install better equipment so that domestically we can promote recycling bottles and trays into pellet and finally outsource it to other countries for recycling,” Akiko Tsuchiya from Greenpeace Japan told dte.
In the UK, the government has been taxing plastic bags since 2015. “Our 5 p [pence] charge on plastic bags has taken 9 billion bags out of circulation, reducing usage by 83 per cent,” said Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, in the House of Commons on January 8. “On 9 January, our worldleading ban on the manufacture of personal care products containing plastic microbeads comes into force,” he added. As per the US Food and Drug Administration, plastic microbeads are smaller than 5 mm and are used in personal care products such as toothpaste. The ban by the UK is targeted to reduce the use of plastic.
Why China banned plastic waste
A 2014 report of iswa flagged off the issues concerning the recycling industry of China. “There are concerns that the material could be used [by manufacturers] for the production of lower quality plastics in violation of specifications. The reprocessing and manufacturing techniques and conditions could potentially endanger the health of workers,” it said. The report also flagged off excessive and uncontrolled use of additives to make the plastic more flexible during recycling.
Satish Sinha, associate director at New Delhi-based non-profit Toxics Link, explains the harmful effects of additives. Exposure to phthalate can adversely reduce the sperm count in males and increase insulin levels while cadmium can harm the kidneys and impair lung functions, he says. Another heavy metal, lead, and bisphenol A and polybrominated dipheyl ether can get deposited in bones and teeth and affect the nervous system, he adds.
Who will bear the burden?
Experts say that Southeast Asia could become the world’s new plastic waste recycle hub. In a commentary published on the isri website in 2016, Steve Wong, executive president of China Scrap Plastics Association, said that China could lose recycling markets to Southeast Asian countries. isri’s Adler confirmed the same to dte, so did Fosimpe SL’s Leon, who said, “We are now eyeing Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. However, they need to figure out their policies as well for export.” Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing regions in the world and its recycling factories receive materials from other countries, he explains. The UK and Japan also said their exporters are targeting these nations.
Lower cost due to inadequate environmental, health and safety controls is also driving the shift of the manufacturing base to Asia. “Data from international agencies suggests that Southeast Asian nations, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, have already seen a spurt in the import of plastic waste in the last few months. Like China, these countries do not have tight laws to address health and environment concerns,” Von Glenn Hernandez, global coor-
Southeast Asia could become the new plastic waste recycle hub. Lower running cost due to inadequate environmental, health and safety controls is driving the shift of the manufacturing base to Asia