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China Won't Solve the World's Plastics Problem Any More (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For a long time, China has been a dumping ground for the world's problematic plastics. In the 1990s, Chinese markets saw that discarded plastic could be profitably recreated into exportable bits and bobs -- and it was less expensive for international cities to send their waste to China than to deal with it themselves. China got cheap plastic and the exporting countries go rid of their trash.
But in November 2017, China said enough. The country closed its doors to contaminated plastic, leaving the exports to be absorbed by neighboring countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. And without the infrastructure to absorb all the waste that China is rejecting, the plastics are piling up. Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash -- straws, bags, water bottles -- will have nowhere to go, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. That's as if every human on Earth contributed a quarter of their body mass in mostly single-use plastic polymers to a massive, abandoned pile of garbage.
But in November 2017, China said enough. The country closed its doors to contaminated plastic, leaving the exports to be absorbed by neighboring countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. And without the infrastructure to absorb all the waste that China is rejecting, the plastics are piling up. Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash -- straws, bags, water bottles -- will have nowhere to go, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. That's as if every human on Earth contributed a quarter of their body mass in mostly single-use plastic polymers to a massive, abandoned pile of garbage.
They are running out of garbage, for real.
In the end they will burn it controlled for heating.
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
Why would China allow importing other countries' garbage? That would amount to treason. That's because it was the WTO concession imposed upon China in exchange for them getting access to the world market at lower tariff. So while we are complaining "unfair trade" with China and ridiculing their environment problem, we must feel shameful about ourselves -- China (and other poor third world countries) had to sell out their environment in order to survive economically while we have ripped the benefits of a clean environment, something that our politicians and media never want to mention. Get down from your moral high horse!
When it comes to plastic waste, the opposite is actually true. This is because most of such waste is packaging.
If you were to ever go to a market in poor countries, one of the first things you'll note is that when you buy your daily products, they come in daily doses, packaged as such. Tiny shampoo packages, tiny soap packages, tiny deodorant, etc. Even food is commonly sold packaged as "this is your portion for the next meal".
This is because people in poor countries can't afford to pay for a bottle that will last them a month. That's a month you have to pay up front. Poor overwhelmingly live day to day, and products are portioned to match this need.
So for the same amount of product, you get order(s) of magnitude more plastic waste. Which is why the plastic garbage problem is far worse in Pacific and primarily originates from poor countries on the West end of Pacific.
I'm not sure to what extend they were really "solving" the problem. I'm guessing that a lot of what gets sent to China for recycling ends up in a landfill where it's out of sight and mind from the Western world.
This is basically the current situation with electronic waste - it is shipped to third-world countries for "reprocessing". Once it arrives there, any recyclable components may or may not be removed before the carcass is dumped in whatever spot is most convenient.
When one of those countries closes its borders to additional trash (as has happened here, with plastics), then the source countries start looking for another third-world country they can pay to receive it rather than spend the money to truly address the problem.
#DeleteChrome
in australia, they mix it with tar,
No they don't. There are precisely 300meters worth of roads in Australia made with recycled plastic as a technology trial that one small startup did this year. I'll get to why below:
and make new roads that are 60% plastic, and last longer too, if theres one place you want plastic to last for 1000s of years, is a damn road.
All roads are made up of a large portion of plastic. However none of it is recycled. The quality of the plastic is precisely controlled and adjusted to suit the conditions of the road surface, both in load, preparation and environment. Also roads break down due to wear and external damage. All roads would last a shitload of time if people didn't drive on them, and if they weren't subjected to extreme temperature changes. It is incredibly hard to make roads to suit conditions which is precisely why the formulation doesn't rely on just recycling some garbage, but rather is a tightly controlled mix of polymers to suit the product.
There's something strange about talking about plastic waste that brings out some wild theories.