Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday October 21 2017, @07:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-dont-know dept.

What will we do when we can't send our junk to China?

The dominant position that China holds in global manufacturing means that for many years China has also been the largest global importer of many types of recyclable materials. Last year, Chinese manufacturers imported 7.3m metric tonnes of waste plastics from developed countries including the UK, the EU, the US and Japan.

However, in July 2017, China announced big changes in the quality control placed on imported materials, notifying the World Trade Organisation that it will ban imports of 24 categories of recyclables and solid waste by the end of the year. This campaign against yang laji or "foreign garbage" applies to plastic, textiles and mixed paper and will result in China taking a lot less material as it replaces imported materials with recycled material collected in its own domestic market, from its growing middle-class and Western-influenced consumers.

The impact of this will be far-reaching. China is the dominant market for recycled plastic. There are concerns that much of the waste that China currently imports, especially the lower grade materials, will have nowhere else to go.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:59AM (#585904)

    I think joblessness is here to stay.

    It is part of the system. Big corps want to have a save batch of unemployed people, the state pays those people to cope with their situation (with public money) and the corps have a pressure system to prevent salaries from increasing (or allow even reduction), giving more private profit.