
China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere - tbirrell
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/china-just-handed-the-world-a-111-million-ton-trash-problem
======
JulianMorrison
We need to stop making things out of plastic, where any alternative exists.

The stuff is going to be the asbestos of the 21st century. Microplastic has
been vastly, vastly underrated as a problem. All my lifetime the attitude has
been that plastic takes eons to degrade and pulverize, but when it does, the
problem of unsightly or dangerous litter is presumably finished. Now we're
seeing the opposite: plastic dust is a poison sponge that bioaccumulates and
has got absolutely everywhere.

~~~
state_less
Plastic is an amazing material. You can thermoform it, it's a great insulator,
molds and fungi don't feed on it, it's incredibly strong (e.g. UHMWPE rope
a.k.a dyneema) and so on.

The trouble seems to be we don't really respect the environment enough, so we
use it in terrible ways, like single use products. We often don't need those
nice properties in single use products, yet we use it anyway because we don't
pay due respect to the long term consequences. So we use things like plastic
containers, forks, cups, bottles and spoons.

What are some alternatives? Should we go back to glass bottles and paper bags?

~~~
r00fus
> Should we go back to glass bottles and paper bags?

If you put a price (read: tax) on plastic, I'm sure many folks would jump at
the opportunity of replacing plastic-heavy stuff with no/minimal plastic
options possibly using glass or paper (or metal where things are disposable
that shouldn't be).

Thing is, plastic has a subsidized price right now due to petroleum supply
chain being subsidized - plastic is a byproduct (we even fight wars to keep
the price low).

~~~
p3llin0r3
Unfortunately, this probably wouldn't work.

Most plastic waste does not come from rich countries with decent waste
infrastructure. It comes from shipping and fishing and industrial vessels who
dump their garbage into the ocean, and developing countries who dispose of all
of their waste by throwing it into a river or the ocean to be washed away.

You can't tax them because they are not in your country. You would have to
stop the plastic being created at it's source, and prevent it from ever being
released into the environment.

~~~
oppositelock
I don't know why you're being down voted. China, India and Africa are
responsible for 90% of the waste in the ocean. All of them are smaller
consumers of it than the US.
([https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/891361/Plastic-waste-
po...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/891361/Plastic-waste-
pollution-90-per-cent-rivers-India-China-Africa))

I can't stand these various doomsday scenario stories. Yes, it's certainly
wasteful to have single use plastic products. Consumers like them, though, and
they're sometimes the only way to comply with various regulations about
cleanliness. For example, washing and steam cleaning glass to sterilize it
uses more energy than just making a plastic bottle.

~~~
chillwaves
> For example, washing and steam cleaning glass to sterilize it uses more
> energy than just making a plastic bottle.

OK but washing and cleaning is the whole consumer life cycle of glass. How
does it compare to both making and "recycling" the plastic bottle?

------
eli
I feel like this is one of the most important underreported stories today.
It's a massive, sudden change that is having ripple affects on the entire
global supply chain.

We've written quite a bit about it on Waste Dive:
[https://www.wastedive.com/news/what-chinese-import-
policies-...](https://www.wastedive.com/news/what-chinese-import-policies-
mean-for-all-50-states/510751/) California is particularly hard hit and is
likely to relax laws about how much recyclable material is allowed to be sent
to landfills. There's nowhere else for it to go.

~~~
jseliger
A useful post. Have you read the Adam Minter book _Junkyard Planet_?
[https://jakeseliger.com/2018/04/10/junkyard-planet-adam-
mint...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/04/10/junkyard-planet-adam-minter). It's
a deep and excellent look into how the junk supply starts in the United States
and goes (went, now, I guess) to China.

"Waste" made sense for China when the country was poor and desperately starved
for raw materials. Now the country is less poor; we are going to have to
somehow subsidize the recycling of waste (expensive) or landfill it (terrible
for the environment).

~~~
RealityVoid
Is landfilling truly terrible for the environment? It seems to me as though if
a concentrated area were used for landfilling, that area is ruined, but
overall the surface is small in the grand scheme of things, so it should have
a relatively small impact. Can anybody expand _why_ landfills are bad? It
certainly seems better than simply leaving junk everywhere.

~~~
bmer
Landfills are not sustainable, and are best used as a stop gap measure. It
might seem like we have lots of easily accessible empty land right now, but
eventually easily accessible land is going to become harder to find. It seems
that it would be wise to come up with a sustainable solution, rather than
assuming we can rely on a non-renewable resource forever.

That being said, why can't volcanoes be used as some sort of a landfill?

~~~
eli
The same reasons we don't just burn all our trash in incinerators plus the
inaccessibility and relatively small number of active volcanoes.

~~~
thinkcontext
Sweden has such good waste to energy plants they now have to import waste to
keep them at full production. It helps that they recycle a tremendous amount
so they don't have all that much to deal with.

------
justinator
"Plastic Recycling" always seemed like such a scam. Very little of it can be
turned into the same thing it was, before. Most of it can only be downcycled
to an inferior product (and then it's mostly the end of the line). To think
we've simply shipped it off to another country to deal with the problem is
criminal. Another part of my childhood where the details were far less
idealistic than the big picture.

~~~
imhoguy
Exactly this. As China bans to buy European "recyclable waste", then it is
imported into countries with legal loopholes e.g. to Poland [1], Serbia,
Italy[2] and so on and somehow landfills start to burn accidentally. Even if
the law changes [3], there will be other places where a penality for such
criminal act is lower than cost of recycling or proper storage.

100% plastic recycling is a dream.

Don't want to even start story about toxic fluids recycling... accidentaly
leaking into rivers.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger...](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger_for_europeans_health_garbage_from/)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_death_(Italy)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_death_\(Italy\))

[3] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-waste/poland-
vows-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-waste/poland-vows-to-
fight-illegal-waste-dumps-after-toxic-fires-idUSKCN1IU1QZ)

------
ribrars
More like there was a huge trash problem and they don't want it anymore... how
is them handing the world a problem when the root cause of the problem is
unsustainable packaging and recyclables?

~~~
rmshea
I think it should serve as a wake up call for the rest of the world. Sweden
has had incredible success with recycling in recent years, most notably
touting the fact that they import other countries' trash to use in their
recycling plants [1]. How can we recreate Sweden’s model in the US and have
our own solution to the trash problem instead of giving it to China?

[1] [https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/sweden-s-
recycling...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/sweden-s-recycling-is-
so-revolutionary-the-country-has-run-out-of-rubbish-a7462976.html)

EDIT: Fixed wording and added source. Sweden is buying other countries' trash,
not selling theirs.

~~~
ars
> Sweden has had incredible success with recycling in recent years

That line is more false than true. For the most part they are not recycling
their trash, they are incinerating it.

Additionally Sweden is tiny. Trash there is brought to local recycling centers
with 6 to 8 or more different bins, and people are expected to sort their
trash.

How would you do that in the US? Trucks with 8 compartments? Where would you
even keep that many different trash cans? The US is very large, you can't
expect people to transport their recycling.

~~~
wool_gather
> you can't expect people to transport their recycling

Why on earth not? The majority used to haul their own garbage to the town dump
a just few decades ago (and some still do in smaller towns). Ubiquity of
curbside pickup is relatively new -- doubly so for recycling. And recyclables
are a heck of a lot more pleasant to carry in the car than rotting kitchen
scraps.

~~~
ars
And if you don't have a car? Or are not strong enough to carry lots of trash?

Or the dump is far enough away to make transporting recycling
counterproductive?

~~~
netheril96
> And if you don't have a car?

My impression has been that you can't live in the US without a car anyway. So
this won't be any new requirements.

------
yread
One of the unintended consequences of that is more waste import to Poland,
which increased taxes on it to limit it which prompted owners of the dumps to
set them on fire

[https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger...](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger_for_europeans_health_garbage_from/)

------
yoran
Good for them. Let the rest of the world fix the problems they're creating
themselves.

~~~
asdsa5325
China is the one _creating_ the plastic in the first place. Don't act like
they have a moral high ground.

~~~
devoply
They create the plastics for those who buy them. Don't act like anyone has the
moral high ground.

~~~
asdsa5325
Ah yes, the "Just following orders" defense

------
jzl
There was a better article about this earlier this year in the New York Times:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-
recyclables-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-recyclables-
ban.html)

Corresponding HN thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719)

------
lopmotr
What's wrong with putting it in landfills? The world has no shortage of
wasteland. If we can afford to ship it to China, can't we spend the same money
driving it on trucks into a nearby desert or valley?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There is a huge assymetry between shipping to and from China. Since China
exports so much, those containers often come back empty. In finding something
to fill these empty containers on the way back, some smart guy (proabably in
China) came up with garbage.

They’ll think of something else to fill the containers with, but it isn’t that
uneconomical to shop garbage to China given the circumstances.

------
baxtr
This is actually great news. Western people will have to get innovate about
avoiding garbage, plastic in particular. Oceans will intake less waste

(Yes, I’m optimistic about this one)

~~~
p3llin0r3
Western nations aren't the problem, it's developing countries with poor waste
infrastructure and industrial vessels.

[https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-
polluting...](https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting-
the-oceans-the-most/)

~~~
justinator
Yeah, we're the problem. It's OUR plastic that China isn't allowing in
anymore.

------
seanalltogether
Seems like Northern Africa would be a pretty logical place for disposing
waste. Lots of unused desert land very close to the sea for easy access by
barge.

~~~
mtw
Isn't there a lot of desert land in the US as well? and easier access than
going all the way to Northern Africa

~~~
justinator
Deserts aren't inhospitable. They're still ecosystems for animals that perhaps
do not want their groundwater (perhaps) tainted by a landfill. Problems are
already happening with pretty terrible materials that have been dumped,

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2015/oct/25/radioactive-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2015/oct/25/radioactive-waste-dump-fire-reveals-nevada-troubled-past)

------
hevad
Plastics aka petroleum are a huge problem, but yoga pants (microplastics) aka
performance synthetic fabrics are a even larger problem.

------
cashsterling
I am not an expert but I am a PhD chemical engineer and I have though about
this issue for years and years.

My 0.02...

Short term

\---------------

a) give houses smaller trash cans and charge a lot for bigger trash cans. Town
I live in already does this... at first I was like "wtf with this tiny trash
can... I can throw away like one, two bags of trash tops per week"... well,
now my household of 4 averages one bag of half full bag of trash per week. we
do more composting and more recycling.

b) double down on recycling programs and sorting.

Short- to Mid-term

\--------------------

c) we should be burning 100% of our actual trash in localized facilities. We
trade the negative of immediate CO2 green gas emissions __but we get:

\-- some power in return

\-- reduced diesel fuel use (at like 4 miles a gallon)... assuming the trip to
local burn facility is shorter than out of landfill

\-- huge reduction methane release from landfill,

\-- 100% elimination of continued landfill pollution and water table pollution
by god knows what (drugs, plastics, leaking batteries, etc.

 __The CO2 effluent stream can be captured and processed in many interesting
ways. The CO2 is so clean it can be used for beverage or biotech service and
/or feed for a CO2 to polymer (plastic building block) plant.

Many modern burn facilities burn so hot [and completely] they could be
certified to deal with bio-hazard and chemical weapon destruction. They have
gas scrubbing systems advamced enough that only N2, O2, and CO2 are emitted
from the plant (NOx, SOx, etc. level are parts per billion levels)... no
complex chemical species, no metals, leave the plant through the gas effluent.

We were/are doing this... but all this NIMBY nonsense is leading to some
collectively destructive group-think _... many folks don 't want to see burn
facilities near their house and there is a lot of money to be made in our
current trash mismanagement system. _Actually, most of our thinking is
collectively destructive group-think so "what's new?"

Edit:
[http://www.lacsd.org/solidwaste/swfacilities/rtefac/commerce...](http://www.lacsd.org/solidwaste/swfacilities/rtefac/commerce/default.asp)
I visited that facility in the 90's... it was great. Now it is closing... not
sure if it being replaced.

Long-term

\------------

d)We need packaging laws and taxes that address waste caused by
excessive/unnecessary packaging... particularly for commercial/industrial use.

e)Society needs to refocus our value system to value simplicity and localized
self-sufficiency: local fresh food over packaged/frozen goods, more reusable
(and infinitely recycle-able) locally filled glass containers

f) localized recycle-to-manufacturing pipelines. Imagine a future where you
could take polyethylene scrap down to a local facility get it 3D printed into
something you or someone else can use (or get a spool of PE line to use in
your own 3D printer at home).

~~~
imhoguy
> give houses smaller trash cans and charge a lot for bigger trash cans.

And then find garbage illegaly dumped in forests.

> d)We need packaging laws and taxes that address waste caused by
> excessive/unnecessary packaging... particularly for commercial/industrial
> use.

This. Taxes and import duties should penalise overuse of hardly recyclable
products and packages.

~~~
cashsterling
It is actually amazing how something as simple as a smaller trash can can
positively influence behavior.

But as a possible solution: No need for them to go to the forest... just to
the local trash accumulation facility and dump it there for free or call for
curb side pickup of extra trash.

------
rapnie
So what is the likelyhood that rich countries - not having the recycling
capacity to deal properly with their own waste - find some other, much poorer
countries (other than the ones mentioned) to use as their garbage dump?

Seems likely to me. Is this already happening?

------
ethicsengineer
This puts into context all of the laws that have been passed recently banning
plastic

------
vermontdevil
All these recycling options included with various municipal waste management
districts are going to have to change. Lots of hard decisions ahead.

------
Svoka
Before building industry and infrastructure to support it this is how my
SimCities made money. Is this what we're seeing here?

------
Simulacra
Have you ever seen the ship-breaking in Bangladesh? It'll all likely go there
with absolutely catastrophic consequences.

------
mistrial9
much duplicity all around on this obviously-important topic .. here is a blog
(discontinued) specifically on Electronics topic
[https://web.archive.org/web/*/ewasteinsights.info/*](https://web.archive.org/web/*/ewasteinsights.info/*)

------
mtw
Is it me or there's been recently China articles with a negative bias recently
on hacker news?

~~~
contactanother
Pretty easy to be negative on China when all the news come out of there are:
dictatorship, imprisonment millions in concentration camps and brainwashes
them, builds artificial islands and claim ownership of seas not even close to
their land, blatantly disregards WTO rules and closes off its market to
others, hacks and steals other countries and their companies IP, threatens to
attack a democratic Taiwan every day, censorship of their citizens,
threatening censorship of other countries about China or its concentration
camps, depletes fishing supplies in other countries, floods the ocean with
plastics, props up dictatorships in other countries, etc etc etc.

~~~
628C6l0
Nuke China.

~~~
contactanother
You literally said you're Chinese, in one of the comment a month ago.

~~~
628C6l0
Nuke us, dominate us with your big white cock.

~~~
dang
I can't fathom how you could post this or the other comments you dropped in
this thread. They're obviously bannable offenses, but since you've mostly
posted fine comments to HN otherwise, I'm going to assume you went on tilt for
some reason and not ban you. Please don't do it again though.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
ssss11
May sound silly but could we send it into space instead of burying it? Surely
it could be sent on a trajectory to burn up at the sun or another planet’s
atmosphere. I guess the obvious issue is cost, are there others?

~~~
ilyagr
It's counterintuitively hard to send something into the sun. You have to
cancel out all of Earth's velocity.

[http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/07/heres-why-we-cant-
just...](http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/07/heres-why-we-cant-just-rocket-
garbage-into-the-sun)

------
oh-kumudo
Maybe start from stopping using plastic

------
Rotdhizon
Long story short: China has been importing trash from many countries for the
past two decades. Now they won't import it anymore, and these countries aren't
prepared to dispose of the trash themselves. The 111m-ton figure is an
estimate by 2030, the current amount is nowhere near that number.

------
coss
Why not just rocket it to space? Sounds like a good business to be in for
SpaceX.

~~~
DmenshunlAnlsis
Seriously? I’m going to have to follow the rules and charitably assume that
you’re serious.

Rocket fuel is expensive, the process of launching and recovering the vehicle
is expensive, and every kg lifted is incredibly expensive. You would also need
to launch it somewhere, or you’d just be launching garbage into a decaying
orbit. You might as well dispose of garbage by burning it on a pile of
diamonds.

~~~
dang
You've crossed into incivility repeatedly in your comments. Could you please
stop doing this? Re-reading the site guidelines might help:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

------
microdrum
Another inhumane and illiberal policy from China. And these guys are supposed
to be the future?

------
squozzer
We could (and maybe should) demand in trade deals that if you ship us plastic,
you take it back.

Easy to enforce? I dunno - why not require country of origin for packaging?

But assuming that won't happen - sounds like an opportunity for US jobs.

Plastic might make decent bricks for building.

~~~
aleksei
Shouldn't rather the entity importing the plastic take responsibility for
disposing of it? As you say it might even create jobs, but I'd say it should
befall the consumer to take care of the waste they produce in any case,
instead of simply shipping it away.

------
contactanother
That's hilariously ironic because China is the biggest exporter of plastics.

1.) China: $17.9B (24.7% of exported plastic items)

2.) Germany $9B (12.4%)

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/plastic-item-exports-
country...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/plastic-item-exports-country/)

plastics are now drowning the ocean, choking fishes (which the Chinese
fisherman has a habit of overfishing, even going out to other countries' sea
to fish). not to mention coral diseases, as well as microfibers ingested by
humans. And China just dump plastics into their rivers and out into the ocean.
letting the other countries take care of them.

Also, interestingly, China's boom in the early 90s came from the fact that
they lacked materials, and they had to take other countries waste in order to
use the waste for materials for production. Now that China's boycotting waste,
the other southeast asian countries are picking up the slack (and waste), and
growing their own industrial capabilities. That's why now manufacturers
usually have two or three different factories in different countries,
lessening dependence on China, and ready to switch when they need to (like the
impending $400 billion tariff on China)

~~~
gowld
I don't see the irony. World consumers asked for plastic. China provided it,
and doesn't want to take it back.

~~~
bilbo0s
Yep. We designed the products, and the packaging. Then ordered that exact
combination to be manufactured in China.

You don't get to order a balsa wood table, of your own design, from a
woodworker, and then complain that they won't take the balsa wood back when
you want to throw the flimsy table away. Especially when you specifically
asked them to make the table from balsa wood.

~~~
628C6l0
You must be Chinese spy! Get him!

