China’s Recycling Ban: A Wake-Up Call in the Global Plastic Pollution Crisis
For decades, the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle” has been inescapably echoing in individuals’ ears as a call to environmental sustainability.1 Yet the global picture reveals that “much of the planet is swimming in discarded plastic”2 – more than 6.3 billion tons, to be exact.3 Oceans have assumed the role of plastic conveyor belts, just like developing countries have become the dumpsites for the developed world.4 Currently fueling the problem, in part, are the ripple effects caused by China’s recent ban on imported plastic waste.5
Unbeknownst to many, recyclable plastic is actually an international commodity.6 Although a plastic food container is often collected and sorted by a regional recycling authority, its journey does not end there.7 Instead, alongside other scraps, it is crushed into a bale and exported to a country with cheap labor and low environmental standards, and then melted down into pellets used to make new plastic products.8
For over a quarter-century after 1992, China reigned as “the world’s salvage king,” buying forty-five percent of the world’s plastic scrap imports.9 This came to an end in 2018, however, when China stopped importing two-dozen kinds of waste, including plastic scrap,10 thus disrupting the $200 billion global recycling industry.11 Rather than reduce their production of plastic waste, exporting countries simply redirected their waste to Southeast Asian countries that cannot handle such imports.12 One of the hardest-hit developing countries, Malaysia, is drowning in plastic as it struggles to manage an import volume now double that of China and Hong Kong.13
One hallmark of this “new type of environmental crisis” has been a surge in illegal recycling, as countries grapple with the flood of plastic unleashed by China’s ban.14 Disregarding environmental controls, unlicensed recyclers illegally burn or dump massive amounts of plastics.15 As a result, wastewater has become full of contaminants, chemical additives have been released into the air, and piles of plastic imports have taken residency in local communities and oceans.16 Moreover, China’s recycling ban is a “painful reversal” for environmental sustainability, since countries are being forced to redirect recycling to landfills and to restrict the types of recycling collected.17
The harmful effects on populations and environments resulting from China’s recycled imports ban should serve as a wake-up call for how the international trade in plastics is regulated. Just this past May, nearly every country ratified amendments to the Basel Convention that require exporting countries to obtain prior informed consent from receiving countries before trading most categories of plastic waste.18 While this change in international law is a step in the right direction, more than a mere administrative requirement is needed to address the global plastic pollution crisis.19 Until top exporting countries are adequately incentivized to expand their recycling infrastructures and reduce the consumption of single-use plastic products, the world will continue to drown in plastic waste.20
Adriana Kranjac is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLIII.
This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.1 Tim Laseter et al., Reduce, Reuse, Recycle ... or Rethink, Strategy+Bus. (Nov. 23, 2010), https://www.strategy-business.com/article/10406?gko=fd9f7.
2 Laura Parker, The World’s Plastic Pollution Crisis Explained, Nat’l Geographic (June 7, 2019), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/.
3 Leslie Hook & John Reed, Why the World’s Recycling System Stopped Working, Fin. Times (Oct. 25, 2018), https://www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8 (“The world has produced more than 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste since the 1950s – making plastic one of the largest man-made materials on the planet, behind steel and cement.”).
4 See Laura Parker, China’s Ban on Trash Imports Shifts Waste Crisis to Southeast Asia, Nat’l Geographic (Nov. 16, 2018), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/china-ban-plastic-trash-imports-shifts-waste-crisis-southeast-asia-malaysia/#close.
5 See Hook & Reed, supra note 3.
6 Ivan Watson, China’s Recycling Ban Has Sent America’s Plastic to Malaysia. Now They Don’t Want It – So What Next?, CNN (Apr. 27, 2019, 1:22 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/asia/malaysia-plastic-recycle-intl/index.html (“Once unrecycled plastic scrap leaves the facility it becomes an internationally-traded commodity . . . .”).
7 See Parker, supra note 4.
8 Id.
9 Id.
10 Laura Parker & Kennedy Elliott, Plastic Recycling Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It., Nat’l Geographic (June 20, 2018), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/06/china-plastic-recycling-ban-solutions-science-environment/.
11 Parker, supra note 4.
12 See Hook & Reed, supra note 3.
13 Id.
14 Id.
15 See Watson, supra note 6.
16 Hook & Reed, supra note 3.
17 Id.
18 Sabaa A. Khan, Basel Convention Parties Take Global Lead on Mitigating Plastic Pollution, ASIL Insights (Aug. 26, 2019), https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/23/issue/7/basel-convention-parties-take-global-lead-mitigating-plastic-pollution.
19 See DeAnne Toto, New Rules Place Restrictions on Global Plastic Scrap Trade, Recycling Today (May 13, 2019), https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/basel-convention-restrictions-on-plastic-scrap-trade/.
20 Id.