The mantra that big business seems to push is ‘Recycle, Recycle, Recycle!’, but at what cost? Many of the shipping containers that bring us goods from Asia don’t want to head back empty and in 2010 the NO.1 export from the US to China was Waste and Scrap China recently announced tougher regulations on plastics recycling facilities that could decrease the demand for mixed plastics from aboard. We can’t recycle our way out of our plastic consumption – we need to find better ways to reduce and reuse.
Luke Vernon writes in his Ecorambings blog that China “will strictly enforce regulations that prohibit the import of unwashed, post-consumer plastics and they are banning plastics waste in all food-contact plastic bags. Processing of plastics waste in residential areas will be prohibited. They will not allow companies to sell unwashed leftover plastic from sorting of imported plastic and paper and they are banning the transfer of imported waste to a company other than that allowed by the import license. They are inspecting plastic recycling companies and publishing a list of qualified recyclers, as well as publishing a list of companies that fail inspections. Companies who fail the test for environmental protection will not be allowed to import plastic waste.”
