At the beginning of the new year, as China completely banned the import of 24 types of solid waste, such as waste plastics, unsorted waste paper, waste textile raw materials, and vanadium slag, which have high environmental pollution risks and have been strongly complained by the masses, the waste recycling industry in many Western countries has been impacted.

Analysts pointed out that China's move to significantly increase the import standards for solid waste has undoubtedly made "foreign garbage" exporting countries such as the United States, Australia, and Japan feel uncomfortable, but China's move is not only conducive to promoting its own environmental protection cause, but also in the long run, it will also promote the development and technological progress of the solid waste recycling industry in these exporting countries and even the world.

United States: Enable Artificial Intelligence

Statistics show that the United States is the country that produces the most recyclable waste in the world, and about one-third of its recyclable waste is exported abroad, and about half of these exported waste flows into China.

According to statistics from the American Waste Recycling Industry Association, in 2016, the United States exported a total of US$5.6 billion (about RMB 36.2 billion) of recyclable waste to China, of which about half were waste paper products, weighing more than 13 million tons. Since the ban on the import of "foreign garbage" from China was introduced in July last year, the price of recyclable waste in the United States has been falling. In October last year, the price of waste paper plummeted by 35% to 40%.

"Unsorted waste paper" refers to the mixing of non-recyclable materials in recyclable waste paper. Workers in the waste recycling industry in the United States admitted that they often found non-recyclable materials such as glass bottles, linoleum, handbags, and sweaters in the trash cans containing recyclable waste paper. In the past, the secondary sorting work was done by the Chinese side, which was not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also posed environmental risks.

U.S. media reported that China has significantly increased the import standards for solid waste this time, reducing the proportion of non-recyclable materials in recyclable materials to 0.5%, which is an "impossible task" for the U.S. waste recycling industry.

However, Adina Adler, senior director of the American Association of Waste Recyclers, pointed out that China's high standards and strict requirements are not all bad things for American companies. In order to meet the import standards set by China, some American waste recycling companies have used artificial intelligence to complete garbage sorting at a high price.

Australia: Pressure is also an opportunity

According to Australian media reports, after the Chinese ban came into effect, Australia's exports of 619,000 tons of recyclable waste were affected, involving an amount of 523 million Australian dollars (about 2.68 billion yuan). The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said that China's ban will have a great impact because a large amount of recyclable waste will flood the market, causing a price collapse.

Australian Minister of Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg said in a statement that although China's ban will put pressure on some industries, it will also create opportunities for other industries.

Gail Sloan, CEO of the Australian Waste Management Alliance, analyzed that the industry understands China's approach and understands that China hopes to promote the development of China's circular economy. This is also an opportunity for Australia to develop its own circular economy and create jobs for the industry.

Sloan said that Australia should abandon the traditional concept of "input, production, and discard" and design a "recycling, reuse, and re-production" model to allow producers to purchase recyclable waste and recycle it.

Japan: Change the export target

For a long time, Japan has exported a large amount of recyclable garbage to China. Statistics show that about half of Japan's waste plastic exports are sold to China, and about 70% of its waste paper exports are sold to China.

Unlike Australia, Japan's waste recycling and treatment system is advanced, but strict environmental protection standards and meticulous treatment methods directly lead to high treatment costs. In addition, before the implementation of the ban on the entry of "foreign garbage" into China, Chinese importers usually bid higher, and Japanese recycling companies often lack competitive advantages.

The "Trade and Commerce News" published by the Japan External Trade Organization reported that changes in China's relevant policies will have a significant impact on Japan, and Japan's exports of recyclable garbage to China may even come to an end. An industry insider engaged in waste paper exports in Japan said that after losing the Chinese market, Japan's waste paper exports may turn to Southeast Asian countries.

Professor Liu Xiaoyu of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences pointed out that China's policy of banning the entry of "foreign garbage" will undoubtedly have a certain impact on related industries in traditional garbage exporting countries such as the United States, Australia and Japan in the short term. But in the long run, this move will not only greatly enhance the ability of relevant Chinese enterprises to deal with domestic solid waste, increase the recycling rate, and reduce the unit emission of solid waste disposal, thereby further solving China's environmental pollution problem, but will also force the development of the global solid waste recycling industry and the advancement of related technologies, and contribute to global ecological security.

Southeast Asia takes over "foreign garbage"?

China will completely ban the entry of 24 types of solid waste, including waste plastics, from January 1, 2018. The main exporters of "foreign garbage" are anxious. Where can they "dump" so much garbage? They have set their sights on Southeast Asian countries where labor-intensive industries are relatively developed and the waste recycling industry is far from mature.

According to the judgment of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the most affected are exporters in developed countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan. As an economic information release agency, the Thomson Reuters Foundation said that China imported 7.3 million tons of waste plastics in 2016, accounting for 56% of the world's waste plastic imports that year.

The International Recycling Bureau is located in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, and it positions itself as a non-governmental organization in the global recycling industry. Preliminary statistics from this organization show that the import volume of waste plastics in Southeast Asian countries has increased rapidly recently.

The International Recycling Bureau estimates that Malaysia's import volume of waste plastics will reach 450,000 to 500,000 tons in 2017, an increase of more than 50% from 288,000 tons in 2016; Vietnam's import volume increased by 62% year-on-year to 500,000 to 550,000 tons; Thailand's increase was 117%; Indonesia's increase was 65%.

The Xingye Group, located in Johor, Malaysia, is one of the top five waste plastic recycling companies in this Southeast Asian country. It employs 350 people and can process 40,000 tons of waste plastics from Malaysia, China and abroad every year. The company's founder is Xie Jianhao. When he was 10 years old, he would jump on his parents' small truck during school holidays and follow them to "collect waste" from door to door, pull it back to the open space in the yard at home, and spend hours sorting out glass bottles, aluminum cans, old newspapers and metal waste. That was more than 30 years ago. Today, the waste recycling industry is much more than just "sorting garbage."

At that time, collecting waste was considered a lowly business in the business world, and Xie Jianhao's parents were ashamed to mention it. When Xie Jianhao's company won an international environmental award in 2013, his parents' ideas began to change. Xie Jianhao said: "I don't believe there is a global plastic pollution problem, but there is a global plastic ignorance phenomenon. Plastic is something with a lot of hidden value."

However, in Southeast Asian countries, not many people like Xie Jianhao regard "recycling" as a promising and respectable career, and the pollution risk posed by the influx of foreign garbage into Southeast Asia is real, which has aroused the vigilance of the environmental protection industry. Industry insiders call on Southeast Asian countries to tighten public health and safety regulations, strictly control the "foreign garbage" entering the country, curb the illegal smuggling of hazardous waste, and strengthen environmental monitoring to prevent the spread of harmful chemical waste and endanger human health.

Pollard of the International Recycling Bureau said that more than 8 billion tons of plastic have been produced worldwide so far, only 9% of which has been recycled, and nearly 80% has been discarded: either landfilled or thrown into the sea. The latter operation not only endangers the safety of marine life such as fish, but will eventually poison humans through the food chain.

In the field of environmental protection, countries need to take responsibility, not only in terms of concepts, but also in terms of capacity reserve and construction; producing garbage by themselves and leaving it to others to dispose of is not a long-term solution.

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