Slashdot Mirror
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.
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!