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US States Banned From Exporting Trash To China Are Drowning In Plastic

hackingbear writes "Not only we depend on Chinese labor for the imports but we also depend on them to clean up our mess. Being green is getting a lot harder for eco-friendly states in the U.S., thanks to the country's dependency on overrun Chinese recycling facilities since the start of China's Green Fence policy this year. Recycling centers in Oregon and Washington recently stopped accepting clear plastic "clamshell" containers used for berries, plastic hospital gowns and plastic bags, while California's farmers are grappling with what to do with the 50,000 to 75,000 tons of plastic they use each year. The Green Fence initiative bans bales of plastic that haven't been cleaned or thoroughly sorted. That type of recyclable material, which costs more to recycle, often it ends up in China's landfills, which have become a source of recent unrest in the country's south. For every ton of reusable plastic, China has received many more tons of random trash, some of it toxic. That has helped build 'trash mountains' so high they sometimes bury people alive. For a country facing environmental crisis after environmental crisis, it is no longer tenable to accept US waste exports."

5 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Thank goodness... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...I've never bothered to recycle anything.

    I'm doing my part to keep from burying innocent folks in China!!

    :)

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. Re:Just dig a really deep hole by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nope. This is all plastic. If it were iron, we could recycle it much more easily.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Idiocracy by theArtificial · · Score: 3, Funny

    That has helped build 'trash mountains' so high they sometimes bury people alive

    Great, now I can't get the scene from Idiocracy out of my head that involves the garbage avalanche.

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    Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
  4. Re:come on, this IS the 21st century! by asylumx · · Score: 3, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our bitcoin-toting dirigible overlords.

  5. Re:Just dig a really deep hole by losfromla · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is the Chinese sending back all that useless plastic they don't know how to otherwise get rid of.

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    Only I can judge you.