For years, China was importing almost half of the world’s scrap plastics and paper. Now, countries have been scrambling to figure out what to do with their recyclables ever since China banned most scrap material imports almost two years ago. Here in California, we have been wondering how this would affect our conscious recycling efforts built up in the last twenty years. Back in 2018, San Francisco committed to a zero waste pledge as part of a new initiative jointly developed by San Francisco and other C40 cities in the Waste to Resources network.
Last month, Malaysia announced that it was going to return 3000 metric tons of contaminated plastic waste scraps back to their countries of origin including the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Not only have Thailand and Vietnam started to follow suit and reject plastic imports but also 186 countries have agreed last month in Switzerland to restrict international trade in scrap plastics.
Professor Kate O’Neill, Associate Professor of Global Environmental Politics at the University of California, Berkeley has written an article on how the 1989 Basel Convention has adopted a new provision, how recyclers in the United States are treating this as a crisis or opportunity, and why countries need to come together to “coordinate scattered global initiatives and build up relevant international law, and implement extended producer responsibility for plastics.”
Professor Kate O’Neill’s forthcoming book, “Waste, shows scrap material of all kinds as both a resource and a threat.” Her original article can be found in The Conversation. This topic feeds into the upcoming Wastebuild conference that will address the dire need to eliminate global waste and transition to a circular economy.
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