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Read the article. China is complaining it is getting too much back. It will still need to get them back, just not at the rate it is getting. They are also complaining that many of the waste contains hazardous materials and are not properly cleaned before they receive it.
They're banning 24 types of recyclables outright, but obviously not all recyclables are being banned. It would be interesting to see a list of the 24 types that are being totally banned.
A lot of that plastic came from China BECAUSE the west has been sending it to China as plastic garbage and China has been recycling it into other products and sending it back to the west. Again and again and round and round it goes ...... until now.
I anticipate that if China sticks to its guns and refuses to accept any more plastic garbage from the west then in the long run there won't be the same amount of plastic products being exported from China back to the west. The west will have to find another way to recycle their own garbage and hopefully learn how to stop being such a spoiled rotten throw away society.
Just because we are not sending them our trash, will not have any effect on how much plastic goods and packaging they send to this country. Just understand they have come up with another source to make their plastic goods.
I agree that needless packaging, necessitated by legal liability concerns, is the biggest source of disposable plastic waste. Re-cycling is only a partial solution because even plastic degrades in the re-cycling process, therefore even re-cycling isn't really "sustainable."
Moreover, this is another example of exaggerated emphasis of a small problem:
At the current rate of refuse production, Americans will fill dumps 100 ft deep covering 1000 sq miles in the next CENTURY. Most of these sites will themselves be "re-cycled" as parks & recreational areas. The continental US is 19 MILLION sq miles. https://science.howstuffworks.com/en...t-landfill.htm
We all (Western countries) should be doing this: Sweden
Sweden is so good at recycling that, for several years, it has imported rubbish from other countries to keep its recycling plants going. Less than 1% of Swedish household waste was sent to landfill last year or any year since 2011.
I also need to add, that while traveling to Europe and visiting several countries year after year, I didn't see such extensive packaging of goods as in the USA.
Every year in the US, the paper, aluminum, glass, plastics and other recyclable material we throw away would be worth $11.4 billion if it were recycled instead. Less than 14 % of plastic packaging, which is the fastest-growing form of packaging, gets recycled. We have one of the lowest overall recycling rates of any developed nation.
In Europe, food companies are responsible for the packaging they put out into the world. Yet the very same big multinational corporations that agree to pay for collection of their packaging in Europe, Canada and elsewhere, refuse to take that same responsibility in the US. Many of these companies also fight bottle and container deposits, which have proven to be the single most successful way to boost recycling rates in the US. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/peter-l...ackaging-waste
US companies get away with it because local, state, federal government allows it
And with Pruitt in at the EPA and Trump in the WH, you can bet it will be an uphill fight to get anything positive done now...
The US companies in Europe don't just "agree" to pay for collection, I believe they are compelled to do that because of the laws of the country they operate within...nothing they can do but comply because the fines and courts would certainly be worse if they didn't...
US companies get away with it because local, state, federal government allows it...
..
"Freedom is the right to do anything the law allows." --Baron de Montesquieu
The US has 5% of the word's population and 25% of the wealth. We must be doing something right.
As I said in my previous post, the problem of refuse is over-stated. Your false assumption about the problem leads you to false conclusions-- which would impose your mistakes on everybody, unjustly taking away our freedom, if you had your way. I think that's what they call fascism.
"Freedom is the right to do anything the law allows." --Baron de Montesquieu
The US has 5% of the word's population and 25% of the wealth. We must be doing something right.
As I said in my previous post, the problem of refuse is over-stated. Your false assumption about the problem leads you to false conclusions-- which would impose your mistakes on everybody, unjustly taking away our freedom, if you had your way. I think that's what they call fascism.
We were the world's best industrialized nation at the end of WW2 when countries like the Axis powers and most of industrialized Europe were decimated--
America Suffered no real damage to OUR homeland or production capacity during the war
We Had an educated population able to take advantage of the post war economy and basically took advantage of that vacuum for decades after as the British Empire fell away as its colonies declared independence, saw the Russian experiment drive itself into the group over incompetent management and political vs economic goals
Latin America and Africa were still mainly undeveloped, uneducated, and unindustrialized
India was dealing with establishing a centralized government and dealing with Pakistan
Why should we be where we are---we had all the advantages and few of the negatives other countries had to overcome
Why we refuse to deal honestly with issues like climate change or the addiction to plastics is because most companies are too uneducated to see the benefit to dealing with those problems in positive way vs continuing their established policies...
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oldtrader
Just because we are not sending them our trash, will not have any effect on how much plastic goods and packaging they send to this country. Just understand they have come up with another source to make their plastic goods.
as with alternative fuels (including using recycled Plastics to make fuel), at the moment is it cheaper and faster to make MORE plastics from virgin dino oil.
Plus... costs... / value added...China can charge USA MORE for plastics it produces! (when WW plastics resin supply is put on allocation, as it is NOW)
As mentioned in the articles... Americans send VERY dirty recyclables, so... additional labor / energy is required to sort and refine. China labor rates are rapidly increasing, so... cut out the labor!
It is not FREE to send the USA Plastics waste to China. (but it is very cheap with empty ships headed that direction).
I would consider the USA should again innovate a 'Plastics to Fuel' solution for the World's recycled plastics. When / IF it is viable (again) ... China will want it back. BUT by then... you and I might be 'hand sorting' scrap plastics bound for CHINA!
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