
China Bans Foreign Waste – What Will Happen to the World's Recycling? - kungfudoi
https://theconversation.com/china-bans-foreign-waste-but-what-will-happen-to-the-worlds-recycling-85924
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andrewstuart
Reposted from a few days ago... incredibly relevant to this post.

I urge you to stop believing in recycling.

Here's some things to think about:

The "packaging" industry, is in fact a nice way of saying the "garbage
manufacturing" industry.

At least in Australia, the "recycling industry" is owned by the "packaging
industry". Hmmm.. why is that? It put it to you that the garbage manufacturing
industry has in fact worked out how to "own" the environmental movement by
pushing "recycling" as the "balance" to the spewing forth of garbage from the
packaging industry. The packaging industry must be laughing so hard at how
easily it has owned the environmental movement. Have you ever wondered if all
that packaging you put in your recycle bin gets recycled? It's a question
worth thinking about.

I have come to believe that recycling, which environmentalists embrace deeply
as a core value, is in fact just a smokescreen that allows everyone to feel OK
about the garbage manufacturing industry creating an unending quantity of
plastics that have made their way into every nook and cranny of our ecosystem.

Please, stop believing in recycling.... if you recycle, then you do not
question the unbelievable, and unrecyclable, quantity of plastic packaging
that you consume. One you stop believing in recycling, you start to ask the
question, "why the heck do we permit the packaging industry to create this
unstoppable flow of garbage" Seems to me that world MUST eventually move to a
solution which is a set of standardised containers for all products, which are
durable, washable, have a refund value attached, and may have paper corporate
brand stuck on them after being washed.

Another strategy worth bringing forward is the idea of "garbage brands".....
showing off all those precious brands but in their true context... as garbage
in our creeks, rivers and oceans, drains and footpaths. Once brands start to
become associated with garbage, they might rethinkg whether they want their
names and logos on the digusting mess destroying our environment.

Please, stop believing in recycling and the smokescreen will clear and you
will start to ask questions about the packaging industry and our
community/commercial system that supports it. Asbestos, tobacco, sugary foods,
packaging - all industries that have fooled us into believing things that are
wrong but served their own ends. The packaging industry has fooled us into
thinking that it is OK because recycling exists.

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pilsetnieks
In all that rant of yours, you don't mention once why recycling doesn't work,
just implore us to stop believing in it. Why is that?

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andrewstuart
It doesn't work because everywhere you look the world is full of garbage.

I went on a holiday to the pacific recently and stayed on a remote island and
walked around it and every 10 feet - literally - was a plastic drink bottle.

Is that not enough to convince you that there's a problem?

~~~
pilsetnieks
So recycling doesn't work because you can see trash that _isn 't_ recycled?

There is a problem but it's not a problem with recycling.

~~~
namlem
What are you going to recycle it all into? It's just not economical to do.
Sweden gets it, they burn their garbage for power instead.

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imron
> what will happen to the world’s recycling?

It will move to another country whose leaders value money over the
environment. China now has enough money and clout to say no.

There are plenty of places that don't.

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ggm
China invests in Africa. This is both an economic (coltan, and trade)
decision, and a political (influence, votes in the UN) decision.

Now, it looks like it might be a shrewd environmental decision, if you are a
province in China with a huge pollution problem from plastics recycling.
Voila! export the problem to Africa. .. (not saying this is _good_ in any
sense, but it would make sense as an operating model: its what we did to them,
so they do it to the next emerging colonial empire)

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powerapple
Why the fxxk you drew conclusion like this? It has nothing to do with Chinese
domestic wastes. It is about wastes used to ship to China. There are many
other countries has been the dump field for west for so many years. India for
example. Yes, Africa. If China has been processing imported wastes for a very
long time, they should be able to process domestic wastes for some time. I am
Chinese, and I get very annoyed that for any title with 'China' in it, you
just draw negative conclusion from it which has nothing to do with the
article.

~~~
ggm
I'm not sure I understand why you think this is anti Chinese? All China is
doing is recapitulating colonialism. I expect there are good social and
economic reasons to stop polluting Chinese provinces with imported wastes, but
Chinese businesses will want to retain profit and trade.

Therefore relocating recycling businesses overseas makes sense. China has now
deep roots in Africa primarily aimed at extraction of raw materials but also
for sale of goods and services (Huawei for instance supply African mobile
operators with turnkey solutions) so inviting African economies with low
barriers to pollution and lax labour laws to bid for contracts to reprocess
waste is surely normal?

Isn't that why the UK and Europe export the waste to China?

Britain used to make ships. Then ship making moved to Portugal and then
Poland, and then Korea. Trade moves to low labour cost economies. As China
tightens pollution and labour law the cost of processing waste will rise until
it's more economic to do it somewhere else. I just expect Chinese business to
defiantly retain a role in that.

The votes in the UN yes, that was perhaps unfortunately said. I apologize. If
I said China was merely redressing systemically acquired imbalances by
investing in Africa and the Pacific islands,and the quid pro quo was
mutuality, would that be better?

I love China. I visit it frequently, lots of Chinese companies invest in
Australia, our economic future is closely tied. I am tired of dissembling in
this space. What China is doing is not immoral: it's amoral, no different to
what the west did, does.

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robert42
The article is not about China exporting waste to Africa. It is about how the
Western world might get refused to export their waste to China. Meaning how
China is leaving its position of subordinate.

Yet, each time there is an article about China, people here feels the need to
point out what China is doing wrong and how China is going to dominate. Also
there is a lot articles from the nytimes published here who feels more like
warning people that China is going to dominate "us".

This is a long-time classic pattern actually :
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril)
I am french and white here. When I was young I read, as plenty of my friends,
these kind of book :
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus)
or Lucky Luke with its really cliche depictions of Chinese. It was normal but
for sure it shows some racist patterns towards chinese people and people
perceived as chinese here in France. Actually the consequences are obvious :
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and-
pro...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and-protesters-
clash-in-paris-over-death-of-chinese-man)

I think it doesn't free China of criticism and what is happening in Africa is
wrong. But coming from westerners like me.. I mean a french criticizing China
taking over Africa feels more like a dog fighting other dogs to keep his bone.
After you are free to act like if US or other imperialist power/western
countries are so different but I am very skeptical when I see reactions here.
People from our imperialist countries act like if they wanted to keep Africa
for their own economic development, otherwise they would massively protest
against our militaries and our companies ruling over Africa.

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wiineeth
Probably will shift to india

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dang
Url changed from [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans-
foreig...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans-foreign-
waste-but-what-will-happen-to-the-worlds-recycling/), which points to this.

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Myrmornis
Very oddly written article. The author seems to assume that the US and EU are
above doing whatever China does with the recycled plastics.

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ztjio
They are above paying subhuman wages for extreme exposure to dangerous and
toxic environments for extended periods of time. Yes.

~~~
basicplus2
Now maybe, but they weren't during the western industrial revolution and well
beyond! Geez read some history!

