Since the beginning of the new year, many Western countries felt “huge pressure” from the garbage. Following China's complete ban on the import of 24 types of solid waste, such as plastic waste, unsorted waste paper, textile materials and vanadium slag, which pose a high risk of environmental pollution and cause strong public dissatisfaction, some countries are facing the problem of garbage accumulation.

How will America, Japan and Australia, which are the main countries exporting garbage to China, react to this? We present to your attention a journalistic study.

US begins to use artificial intelligence to follow new Chinese standards

In Oregon, located in the northwestern United States, on the coast Pacific Ocean, more than 90% of residents throw their mail trash, unwanted phone books and old magazines into recycling bins. Every two weeks, a special vehicle arrives and takes the bins to established waste recycling points. From there, the waste paper will begin its journey to China.

The United States is the world's largest producer of recycled waste, exporting about a third of it abroad, half of it going to China. According to statistics from the US National Waste and Recycling Association, the United States exported 5.6 billion yuan (about $36.2 billion) worth of waste to China in 2016, half of which was waste paper weighing more than 13 million tons.

Since China banned the import of “overseas trash” last July, prices for recyclable waste from the United States have steadily declined. In October last year, prices for waste paper fell sharply by 35-40%.

Having lost a major buyer like China, many US recycling companies are scrambling to find alternatives. However, no country can absorb this a large number of waste like the Chinese market. Moreover, countries such as Australia and Japan are equally affected by the Chinese ban and are also looking for ways to export their waste.

“Other countries can't fill the gap, which is why recycling is now in chaos,” says the manager of a recycling company in Portland, US.

By “unsorted waste paper” we mean waste paper, which, in addition to materials suitable for recycling, also contains those that are not subject to it. US Recycling System officials admit that they often find non-recyclable items such as glass bottles, tar paper, bags and even wool clothing in recycling bins.

In the past, secondary sorting was carried out by the Chinese side, not to mention that it requires a lot of time and effort, it also carries high environmental risks. Some US media reports have reported that after China significantly raises standards for imported solid waste, the proportion of non-recyclable materials in recycling will have to drop to 0.5%, which is an “impossible goal” for the US recycling industry.

Adina Adler, the top official at the US National Waste and Recycling Association, said the organization is in talks with China to loosen waste import standards accordingly.

At the same time, she noted that China's high standards and strict requirements are not only harmful to US enterprises, and may have sounded the horn of a revolution in waste recycling.

To meet import standards set by China, some US recycling companies, despite the high cost, are introducing the use of artificial intelligence to perform sorting.

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One company in Oregon has implemented a system in which robots select non-recyclable items from waste. A mechanical arm is capable of performing 80 operations per minute, while the most efficient workers can only perform 30. However, this system is very expensive, and not every company can afford it.

For most recycling companies, detailed waste sorting, as well as monitoring the "purity" of incoming waste, starting at the source, is perhaps the most practical option.

Some companies have already begun to re-set waste disposal standards and are considering increasing the number of dedicated waste bins to reduce pressure from waste sorting.

One recycling company has even considered installing cameras on garbage trucks to monitor whether people are disposing of trash as required.

Australia. Pressure is also a chance to change the concept

Australian media reported that once the new ban comes into force, 619,000 tonnes of materials with a market value of AUD 523 million (about RMB 2.68 billion) will be affected in Australia.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting Garth Lamb, business development manager for a waste recycling company in Sydney, said: "The Chinese ban will have a significant impact as huge quantities of recyclable materials flood into the market and prices will definitely collapse."

Australia's Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said in a statement: "While China's ban will put pressure on some industries, it will also create opportunities for some downstream industries."

Gail Sloan, chief executive of the Australian Waste Recycling Association, told a Xinhua news agency reporter: "Industry understands China's methods and recognizes that China hopes to develop a green economy in the country."

“It also provides an opportunity for Australia to develop its own recycling economy and create jobs in the industry.”

“The first problem we now face is the time it will take for the new rules to be implemented and the speed with which we will make the corresponding regulations to get rid of waste within the country. We must, like European countries, change the consciousness of consumers and governments, abandon the traditional concept of “invest, produce, throw away”, and instead strive to reuse natural resources as much as possible.”

“Therefore, an approach that includes 'recycle, reuse and remanufacture' should be developed to allow manufacturers and manufacturers to buy renewable materials and products and reuse them. How to develop a product, manage a product and reuse it is the challenge that we are facing"

Japan exports to China while its own enterprises are undernourished

Unlike Australia, Japan already has advanced "recycle, reuse and remanufacture" techniques. However, due to the influence of factors such as price, Japan still exports large amounts of “foreign garbage” to China.

Statistics from the Japan External Trade Promotion Organization show that Japan exported about 840,000 tons of plastic waste and 280,000 tons of waste paper to China in 2016.

According to Japan's trade statistics, about half of all plastic waste exports and about 70% of waste paper exports go to China.

The Japan External Trade Promotion Organization said in its daily last September that China's policy changes would have a significant impact on Japan. Some even believe that for Japan, the Chinese export market for “renewable resources” may disappear.

Due to the fact that the cost of disposal of waste in Japan is quite high, and Chinese importers offer high prices, Japanese recycling companies do not occupy a leading position in competition with Chinese importers of “foreign waste” (renewable resources). Therefore, Japanese "overseas garbage" (renewable resources) is constantly exported to China, and waste treatment companies in Japan are faced with the problem of "malnutrition". Some have been forced to cut production capacity, leading Japan to become dependent on China for waste recycling.

The latter includes bottles from mineral water, glass bottles, paper, aluminum and tin cans and so on. The Japanese television channel NHK did a special episode on the topic of Japan's dependence on China in the field of waste recycling.

After the 2008 financial crisis, Chinese businesses reduced their demand for waste from Japan and sharply reduced their orders. The model in which Japan depends on China for recycling is under threat. Due to the country's lack of production capacity, some recycling plants are left with piles of interconnected plastic bottles.

Japan has an advanced recycling system, but the highest environmental standards and the most careful treatment methods come with significant costs.

Residents of Japan take their garbage to a certain place every week on a set day, where special people pick it up. The population does not receive any compensation for this.

Even if it were possible to recycle waste for free, Japanese recycling plants would not be able to easily turn a profit. The reporter interviewed at a plant that recycles used plastic bottles. This plant first crushes plastic bottles and then turns them into virgin plastic products. The responsible representative stated that the plant is due to a lack of raw materials and its production capacity utilization is low.

China has now implemented a ban on the import of "foreign waste", which has posed a new challenge to Japanese waste recycling enterprises.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Experts: the environment in China will improve, while other countries will be mired in waste

China slams the lid on the trash can: as of January 1, 2018, the country officially bans the import of 24 types of waste. The corresponding application was registered by the World Trade Organization back in July. The import taboo applies, for example, to metals or their compounds containing arsenic, textiles, unsorted waste paper, and plastic waste, including polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) bottles.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China explains this decision this way: in “foreign” garbage, solid waste is mixed with a huge amount of dirty or even hazardous waste that cannot be used as raw materials. Food scraps, knitted sweaters and gas canisters are all items that Chinese waste sorting workers are forced to clear out of rubbish piles every day. However, much of it leaks into recycling, adding to environmental pollution. Correcting the list of imported garbage is a necessary measure to protect the environment and public health.

The restrictions will radically affect the global waste recycling and disposal system. In 2016, China absorbed 7.3 million tons of plastic waste from different countries, including the UK, US and Japan. China accounts for 51% of global imports of old plastic. For decades, recyclable materials have been used to fuel China's economy. But everything is changing. Today, the Middle Kingdom is striving to reduce its dependence on polluting manufacturing industries.

Experts are confident that this will have a devastating impact on waste recycling around the world. Without waiting for the new year, China stopped issuing licenses for the import of used plastics, and some recycling programs are already starting to fail. For example, in Portland (Oregon, USA), restrictions on certain types of plastics have been introduced at collection points, and piles of plastic are growing in landfills in rural areas of the state.

Bales of pieces of linoleum, old carpets and rags, boxes and plastic bags even filled the parking lot of Rogue Waste, one of the waste collection companies. Employees say they have no choice but to dump the illiquid goods at the nearest landfill. Dozens of enterprises are already asking for permission to do this, and their number continues to grow.

Adina Adler, senior director of international affairs at the Waste Recycling Institute (ISRI), says the US recycling sector is falling into chaos. Big cities, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, will have to rethink their entire waste management chain to avoid drowning in trash.

Dissatisfaction with the inaction of the Ministry of the Environment is growing in the UK - the public is demanding urgent action to support the national recycling industry, writes the Guardian. Since 2012, UK companies have imported more than 2.7 million tonnes of plastic waste into China and Hong Kong, according to Greenpeace. Signs that this convenient channel might be blocked appeared long ago, but the authorities took no action. Ray Georgen, head of the Resources Association, is saddened: he says the country will be completely covered in plastic yogurt cups if we don’t urgently organize our own recycling infrastructure. “Unfortunately, because of Brexit we have other priorities.”- the British lament.

While environmentalists are clutching their heads over the scale of the impending disaster, chemical manufacturers are rubbing their hands. According to IndustryWeek, China has already begun a substitution policy and is actively purchasing new plastic - to the delight of American chemical companies. The US is the only country that can quickly fill this gap, industry analysts say. In due time, thanks low prices for gas, an unprecedented $185 billion was invested in the construction of new capacities.

The development of the industry continues today. « good time to attract new assets",- comments the executive director of Chevron Phillips Chemical CoMark Lashier. This company has opened two additional PE production plants in Texas.

It is predicted that polyethylene exports to Asia from the United States will increase fivefold and reach about 5 million tons by 2020.

Workers in the UK recycling industry say they don't know how they will deal with plastic waste after China banned the import of such waste, the BBC reports.

Britain annually sent up to 500 thousand tons of plastic to China for processing, but now trade in plastic waste has been suspended.

According to representatives of the British Recycling Association, the country is currently unable to cope with about a quarter of the plastic waste it produces on its own.

The association's chief executive, Simon Allyn, told the BBC he had no idea how the issue would be addressed in the short term.

“This is a huge blow for us... it's a game changer for our industry,” he says. “We've relied on China for so long to handle our waste... 55% paper, over 25% plastic.

“We simply don’t have markets for this kind of waste in the UK,” explains Allyn. “Which means our whole industry is going to undergo huge changes.”

Since January 2018, China has introduced a ban on the import of waste from abroad as part of a program to modernize the country's economy.

Some of the British plastic is ready to be accepted by other Asian countries, but there will still be a lot left.

UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove has already admitted that he failed to recognize the problem that the country would soon face and how to prepare for the Chinese ban.

British plastic recycling organization Recoup said a ban on sending waste to China would lead to the accumulation of more and more plastic waste - meaning it would have to be incinerated or landfilled. But this won’t help the situation much.

Peter Fleming, from the Local Government Association, told the BBC: "Clearly some of the waste will have to be incinerated, but not all parts of the country have incinerators."

"The situation is really difficult, but mostly in the short term... and we will cope. In the long term we need a much smarter waste strategy," he added.

However, any attempt to start burning more plastic waste will be met with stiff resistance from environmental groups.

"Wrong decision"

"The authorities bear full responsibility for this chaos because they continually delayed decisions," Greenpeace spokeswoman Louise Edge told the BBC.

"Burning waste is a bad solution. It is a non-renewable way to generate electricity and has a high carbon footprint. Burning also releases toxic substances and heavy metals," she continues.

“If we build new incinerators, over the next 20 years this will create a market for the production of new single-use plastic packaging, but our goal now is exactly the opposite - to reduce this production,” Edge explains.

British authorities are considering introducing a tax on single-use plastic packaging and are considering possible schemes return of plastic bottles.

Reduce and simplify

According to Michael Gove, the long-term goal is to reduce the amount of plastic in the economy as a whole, reduce the number of different plastics, simplify local regulations - so people can easily recognize what can be recycled and what cannot, and generally speed up waste recycling process.

The UK must “stop sending its rubbish abroad”, the minister believes.

Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee said Britain should introduce a sliding tax rate on plastic packaging, with the most difficult waste to be treated the most and the easiest to recycle the least.

There is largely a consensus on how to resolve this issue, but it is still unclear how the UK intends to achieve its long-term goals and how it will manage to resolve the “China crisis” in the near future.

Ecology of knowledge. Science and Technology: For over 20 years, China was essentially the plastic dumping ground of several countries, including the UK. Now this door is closed and no one knows what to do.

For more than 20 years, China was essentially the plastic dumping ground of several countries, including the UK. Now this door is closed and no one knows what to do.

China no longer wants to be the world's dumping ground. Over the past twenty years, the country has been importing huge amounts of waste plastic from countries including the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. But last year she announced that she would no longer do it. The ban on plastic imports came into force on January 1, 2018.

"Last summer Chinese government has announced its intention to stop importing 24 types of solid waste by the end of the year, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, other plastic bottles, containers and all waste paper, in a campaign against yang laji or "other people's garbage".

The decision was a huge blow for the UK in particular, which sent about two-thirds of its waste plastic to China.

Since 2012, the UK has sent more than 2.7 million tonnes of plastic to China.

Recoup, a UK charity working to promote recycling in the UK, accuses the government of failing to take action when it needs to.

Their article highlights that there were signs as early as 2008 and 2012 that the Chinese market might eventually be constrained, but the UK did nothing about it. Environment Secretary Michael Gove admits he "doesn't know what impact it will have" and "hasn't thought about it yet."

Now that the ban has come into force, city councils are trying to figure out what to do about the current situation. The trash is already piling up.

“If you walk through the neighborhoods of our area, you can see the consequences. Plastic is piling up and if you go back to these places in a couple of months it will be even worse,” said Simon Ellin from the UK Recycling Association.

Apparently some recycling companies stopped shipping their plastic to China in early fall, fearing it wouldn't arrive before the deadline.

Officials talk about the need to build more incinerators, but this is not a sustainable solution.

"Burning is the wrong decision," Greenpeace's Louise Edge told the BBC. “It is a high-carbon, non-renewable form of electricity generation that creates toxic chemicals and heavy metals. If you build incinerators, it creates a market for the next 20 years for single-use plastics, which is exactly what we need to reduce now.”

Landfills are also not an option. Plastic waste is stored but not broken down, taking up valuable space and leaching toxic chemicals.

The UK government is currently angry about China's decision, but these major changes can also be seen as a great opportunity to find a fundamentally new approach to dealing with recyclables.

Instead of panicking and looking for short-term solutions, Britain should think deeply about the kind of efficient economy, clean environment and cities it wants to have. The UK must "stop cleaning up its filth". China's position was comfortable as long as it suited everyone, but now it is time to face the consequences of our convenient dependence. published If you have any questions on this topic, ask them to the experts and readers of our project.

European Union waste recyclers have reported problems with waste exports. At the end of 2017, China imposed strict restrictions on the import of foreign waste. In particular, the country has completely stopped accepting plastic waste. Two months later, it became clear that the European Union was practically unable to meet the new requirements for accepted waste. The portal Politico.eu writes about the situation in Europe.

"All sorting centers clogged,” complains Pascal Geneviève, head of paper at Federec (France’s Federation of Waste Recyclers) and director of the utilities division of the diversified company Veolia. — Immediately after the Christmas holidays, paper waste began to accumulate, but there is no decision on export yet. All European recycling factories are overcrowded.”

As the publication notes, the EU waste recycling system was based on the export of a fair share of waste to other countries, in particular to China. Thus, of the 56.4 million tons of paper discarded by EU citizens in 2016, 8 million were purchased by Chinese recycling centers, which turned it into cardboard and sent it back to Europe as packaging for their goods. Of the 8.4 million tons of plastic waste collected in Europe, 1.6 million ended up in China. Due to the current situation, the EU countries still have three low-environmental options: waste incineration, burial, or export to countries other than China.

In January 2018, the European Commission announced a “plastic strategy” aimed at ensuring that by 2030 all plastic packaging can be recycled or reused. According to the commission, this could create 200 thousand jobs. But first, Europe's capacity to sort and recycle waste needs to be quadrupled. In addition, in December 2017, EU countries agreed to increase recycling rates for other materials (paper and cardboard, metals and glass) to 70% by the same date.

The revised Landfill Directive, agreed by EU institutions last December, capped the landfill of municipal waste at 10% of the total by 2035, but gave an extra five years for European states with high waste disposal tariffs to meet the requirement.

Experts believe that the European Union will look for new places to export its waste. Garbage may begin to be transported to Asia instead of Eastern Europe. Thus, Bulgaria, which buried 82% of its own waste in 2014, has very low taxes on this type of disposal. Estonia, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Slovakia similarly eliminated more than 50% of their waste in the same period.

“These states could become Europe's landfill,” said Ella Stengler, director of the Confederation of European Waste-Fired Power Plants CEWEP. “Waste always finds the cheapest route.”