Article by Gwynn Guilford<\/p>\n
Being green is getting a lot harder for eco-friendly states in the US, thanks to the country\u2019s dependency on overrun Chinese recycling facilities. Recycling centers in Oregon recently stopped accepting clear plastic \u201cclamshell\u201d containers used for berries, plastic hospital gowns and plastic bags, as the Ashland Daily Tidings reports. Yogurt and butter tubs are probably next. In Olympia, Washington, recycling centers are no longer accepting plastic bags. California\u2019s farmers are grappling with what to do with the 50,000 to 75,000 tons of plastic they use each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is we don\u2019t have a market for it,\u201d Jeff Hardwood, an Olympia-area recycling center manager, tells Washington state\u2019s KIRO-TV. \u201dChina is saying we are only going to accept the high-value material we have a demand for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardwood is referring to China\u2019s \u201cGreen Fence\u201d campaign banning \u201cforeign garbage\u201d (link in Chinese). China has rejected 68,000 tons (61,700 tonnes) of waste in the first five months of 2013, when the program was officially launched. The Green Fence initiative bans bales of plastic that haven\u2019t been cleaned or thoroughly sorted. That type of recyclable material, which costs more to recycle, often ends up in China\u2019s landfills, which have become a source of recent unrest in the country\u2019s south.<\/p>\n
Instead of investing in the sorting and cleaning technologies required to process soiled and unsorted recyclables, which both China and the US have been reluctant to do, China\u2019s Green Fence policy blocks the import of those plastics. As a result, US recycling centers that once accepted scrap plastic for recycling are being forced to send it to American landfills.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve discussed before, Americans generally don\u2019t recycle their plastic; they export it. And more than half of the $1 billion a year business goes to China.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200bThe full-year projection for 2013 is based on January-June data.<\/p>\n
Green Fence has contributed to the 11% decline in export value of US plastic scrap in the first half of 2013, compared with the same period in 2012. China\u2019s customs data reflect that too. It imported 20% less plastic scrap in Q2 than the same quarter of 2012, a value of $300 million less.<\/p>\n
And yet, Chinese processing factories desperately need US plastic. Once reprocessed, it\u2019s used to make everything from polar fleeces to stadium seats. China imports around 40% of the world\u2019s plastic scrap, collecting the rest domestically. Now that China\u2019s plastic scrap supply is being squeezed by Green Fence bans, plastics smuggling at ports and in cities (links in Chinese) is on the rise.<\/p>\n
For every ton of reusable plastic, China has received many more tons of random trash, some of it toxic. That has helped build \u201ctrash mountains\u201d so high they sometimes bury people alive (link in Chinese). For a country facing environmental crisis after environmental crisis, this is no longer tenable.<\/p>\n
Discarded plastic bottles imported from Australia are seen at a plant in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories August 24, 2011, before a process which separates plastic waste from them. The “Plastic Waste-to-Fuel System” is designed to provide a practical and cost effective solution to plastic waste management with energy regeneration. A prototype machine can process three tonnes of plastic waste into 1,000 litres of fuel oil per day. With further refinement, the fuel oil is suitable for diesel engine usage, said Ecotech Recycling Social Enterprise Managing Director Ming Cheung. Picture taken August 24, 2011. REUTERS\/Bobby Yip<\/p>\n
Because US trash exporters haven\u2019t been forced to spend on technology or labor to sort and clean trash piled up at its recycling centers\u2014Chinese laborers have handled that part\u2014those shipments have been profitable for US exporters. But Green Fence is shifting those economic incentives; It costs the US around $2,100 per shipping container to return rejected trash to California ports.\t<\/p>\n
Those high costs may drive the US to expand its own recycling capacity. Until then, American pollution will no longer be piling up in China; It will be festering at home. <\/p>\n