Overseas Recycling Market Collapse Calls for Cleaner and Less Plastic at Home
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August 3, 2018
What happens to the contents of your recycling bin after you put it out for curbside collection? Do all of the recyclables actually get recycled?
The short answer: not always. We have good intentions when we recycle; nobody wants a polluted, unsafe environment. The problem is, most of us do not make sure that the items we want to recycle are actually recyclable — or that they are clean and dry — before putting them in the bin.
We’ve been overloading the global recycling market with too much plastic, often too wet, moldy, or otherwise contaminated to be recycled in Southeast Asia, where processing facilities are cheaper than our local ones. Many items meant for recycling end up in the landfill — or, worse, our increasingly plastic-filled oceans.
More plastic flows into the ocean from five Southeast Asian countries (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines) than the rest of the world combined. Over the past 25 years, high-income countries like the U.S. have exported 87 percent of the world’s plastic waste. China has taken 45 percent of it, and that number nearly doubles when Hong Kong, as a port to China, is included.
In early 2017, faced with mounting environmental and economic concerns, China permanently banned non-industrial plastic waste imports. In early 2018, the country also stopped accepting over 20 different categories of recyclables — including any recyclable contaminated by more than 0.05 percent. Before, the contamination standard was three percent. In the past, it has been as high as five percent.
About half of all the plastic that exists in the world today has been produced in the last 18 years alone. Put in perspective, the plastic industry began its boom in the postwar American economy of the 1950s. The relatively recent spike in production can be traced alongside the rise of single-use plastic packaging — which may explain why only nine percent of the world’s plastic has been recycled.
Plastics manufacturers — all of which own or are owned by fossil fuel companies — make 10,000 single-use plastic bags every second. That’s 330 billion bags per year. Plastic bags are typically used for a few minutes to a few hours, and almost none are recycled.
When we use plastic only once and then throw it away as trash, we throw away 95 percent of its reuse or recycle value — losing a total of $80–120 billion USD every year, according to a 2017 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Single-use packaging now makes up 40 percent of all plastic, and 89 percent of plastic waste exports are the types of plastic most commonly found in single-use packaging.
A 2018 study from the University of Georgia estimates that at the current rate, over the next decade, more than 100 million metric tons of plastic waste will go unrecycled, most of it ending up as ocean trash. Marine scientists have projected that by the year 2050, plastics in the ocean will outweigh all of the ocean’s fish.
To prevent this catastrophic level of pollution, we can say no to single-use plastic and properly recycle plastics that are recyclable*. We can wash and wipe food or liquid residue off of recyclables before putting them in the bin. But perhaps a more long-term solution would be to reduce our plastic consumption, and ultimately, refuse it altogether. When we invest in sustainable alternatives (such as reusable cloth bags, stainless steel water bottles, bamboo straws, and portable wooden cutlery), we invest in the health of our communities, oceans, and economies for generations to come.
*In Monterey County, recyclable items include glass, aluminum, mixed paper, and plastics #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5. Until further notice, plastics #6 and #7, plastic bags, and plastic film cannot be recycled via curbside collection. Find a nearby drop-off location for those items here.
SOURCES:
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The New Plastics Economy: Catalyzing Action. (01/13/2017)
- National Geographic, June 2018 issue: Planet or Plastic?
- Solid Waste Association of North America: China Recycling Update. (06/12/2018)
- University of Georgia: The Chinese import ban and its impact on global plastic waste trade. Amy L. Brooks, Shunli Wang and Jenna R. Jambeck. (06/20/2018)
- Yes! Magazine: How the Oil Industry is Pushing Plastic. (06/25/2018)
- Monterey Regional Waste Management District Public Opinion Survey. (07/02/2018)
