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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/...
Somehow they don't see a problem with exporting all that plastic in the form of cheap toys and electronics in the first place, eh? Man up, show some responsibility and start dealing with the problem you yourself have created.
I wish it were easier to repair stuff these days. A lot of things that are in otherwise good shape except for a single fatal bad part results in having the toss the entire thing; it's cheaper to buy a new one than pay for repairs.
And they are often only designed to last 3 years. We have a Japanese-brand microwave oven from the late 90's that still works and is used often. You don't see durability like that now. [Insert git-off-my-lawn joke here.]
Table-ized A.I.
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 hate plastic. The feel of it, the look of it, how quickly it breaks down with use. I've been slowly and surely eliminating plastic wares from my life for years. Moving to metal mixing bowls, glass bowls for storing things instead of tupperware, saving and re-using glass jars for storage instead of ziplock bags. I have a stainless steel milkshake cup I use for most of my beverages, instead of the typical american giant plastic cup with a sports team name on it. You know, simple changes.
The main thing that spurred all this was probably a mixing bowl.
I had a set of white plastic mixing bowls, and at some point I had to store some tomato based pasta sauce in one, after which, no matter how much I washed it, it was forever tinted orange. It just looked gross, and sparked the realization that; if the damn plastic bowl was so porous as to be permanently stained by tomato sauce, what the hell else might it have soaked up, and/or leached out of it?
After that, whenever I get a chance, I buy a stainless steel or glass version. Sure, costs more and will take longer to acquire some items, but I figure its worth it.
It all reminds me of the humorous observation:
At what point, did drilling an oil well in the middle east, pumping out that oil, putting the oil on a ship, sail that oil filled ship across the ocean, unloading the oil in America, piping it to a refinery, refining it into some form of plastic, trucking that plastic to a factory, forming that plastic into an object, boxing that object up, putting that box into another truck and trucking it to a warehouse, then from the warehouse to a store, from the store to your house, to be opened, used once, and then thrown away, ALL BECOME EASYER THAN WASHING THE FUCKING FORK.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Cheap Chinese Crap needs to go!
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
> Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash -- straws, bags, water bottles -- will have nowhere to go
Unless the laws of conservation of mass are to be repealed I guarantee that plastic will go somewhere. Therefore, by definition, it will have somewhere to go.
One company uses 70%+ of all the bags recycled in the US. They claim the average deck uses 140K bags.
https://www.trex.com/why-trex/...
If solving the world's plastic problems meant dumping it in the Yangtze river thank god!
The out of sight out of mind policies of 1st world countries, off loading their environmental responsibilities on to countries that are least able to deal with it has to stop, it's an hypocrisy the world's ecosystem can no longer afford
in australia, they mix it with tar, 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.
I am perhaps China's worst nightmare, outside of the great orange one. I'm fairly handy and I use "The power of Grayskull...I mean Craigslist/eBay before buying new things".
The problem is that parts availability for most old repairable things is fading fast. There is only so much welding and epoxy can do. Eventually you need repair parts and they're largely gone for the old stuff. There are exceptions (you can buy replacements for pretty much anything on a 1960s era Ford Mustang) but in most cases you're going to be SOL at some point because some stupid little $2 part breaks 30 years after the fact. When the modern equivalent can't even last 10 that makes me a saaaad panda. That said, I still have many perfectly functional mechanical things dating back to well before I was alive and electronics dating back to 1977, many of which have required no repairs ever. They just work.
No matter how many baby seals (zero) were clubbed to death to make these things how can you imagine an "environmentally friendly" modern equivalent is actually friendlier than a thing that (given a few replacement parts) will literally last forever?
That's not to say that everything lasted forever in the "before time" but you had a choice. You could buy cheap garbage or things that cost a bit more and would last. Now you can spend infinity dollars and still end up with stuff that won't last.
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.