SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @07:41AM (3 children)
That trash was paying part of the cost of ships going back and forth to China. It thus reduced the cost of good bought from China, making the American worker less competitive.
That trash was raw material. China does all the factory work, and the USA is just a consumer. It's better that the USA find a use for the raw material. That would employ American workers.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @07:54AM
All the jobless homeless destitute former workers in Trump America can eat plastic trash for dinner. The economy has no jobs to sustain them and they will die anyway. Better they die with full stomachs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @09:13AM
I agree, if the government were for the people, this would be a good occasion to restart some manufacturing activity.
Unfortunately, If the government were for the people, china would have kept following the west at a distance instead of being a superpower.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:05AM
It goes even further. I read a story recently about European bottles water being shipped to Asia from Europe and Asian bottled water shipped back to Asia. Production and transport of these bottles was lower than its price for which it was sold on the market. The people doing that also had large stakes in the ports being used and the stores that sold the water.