Plastics Pile Up as China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling | Hacker News Reader

Plastics Pile Up as China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling

nytimes.com

88 pointsbthallplz71 comments

Does anyone know why more countries haven’t taken a stance like Germany with glass bottles? For those who aren’t aware, in Germany there are standard glass bottle shapes that are used for beer and soft drinks. Instead of being recycled, the bottle is cleaned, refilled and relabelled - most likely by a different producer. The bottles can be reused up to 50 times.

A lot of countries have the infrastructure of refunding a deposit when a bottle is returned, but it sounds like most of those are just going to end up in a landfill.

The United States used to have this for soft drinks. I remember taking my father's empty Dr. Pepper bottles back to the supermarket for gas money as a teenager. The rebate (just a refund of what you paid for it when you bought it) was about $1 per eight-pack of bottles... this was around 1990 or so. I remember how heavy and sturdy these re-usable bottles were.

This was phased out sometime in the 1990s. I guess it was just too costly for the bottlers.

Same in France where when I was young (late 70’s until mid 80’s) you could return your glass bottles and exchange for money.

But then PET bottles start to rise and the returnable policies eventually disappeared in most country.

Here in Sweden at least you can return PET bottles for money (about 0.10-0.20€).

The bottles in current PET refund programs in Sweden are recycled as raw plastic. The old 1.5L (4 SEK, ~€0.50 refund) PET bottles that existed in the 90s were refilled, though.

Same in Quebec. I believe other provinces in Canada have similar policies.

$ 0.05 on all non-refillable single-fill containers that are 450 ml or less in size

$ 0.10 on all single-fill and glass containers up to 450 ml size

$ 0.20 on all single-fill containers larger than 450 ml

$ 0.05 for each soft drink container sold

I think at least part of it are laws around rivers/lakes/beaches about glass. I can understand why we wouldn't want people to have glass these places. So perhaps instead of having 2 different production lines with more expensive glass and cheaper plastic they just use the cheaper plastic.

I think this is a sign of things to come. The developed world has become so used to benefitting from China’s willingness to take our trash, dangerous labor and low paying work that we’re outraged and shocked when they decide they no longer have to.

There is always Africa if China becomes too developed to do the dirty work. And maybe robots, eventually.

Why do you think China invests in Africa?

We could just landfill our trash. But then we would feel bad about ourself. China doesn't want that - they want us buying lots and lots of stuff.

i.e. China benefits from this more than we do. Clearly China has new plans, or they feel we are so used to buying things we're not going to stop.

Add India and Bangladesh.

> that we’re outraged and shocked when they decide they no longer have to.

Who's outraged? Maybe some places were caught by surprise at the change in policy (perh no fair warning), but I don't recall any outrage. It's their right to refuse. I mean, its a bit different from say OPEC in the 70s suddenly artificially constraining supply --no one would like the US to constrain wheat or corn exports for example.

But this is altogether different. It's probably a good thing as people may be forced to think more in a cradle-to-grave product life-cycle and thus make things with that built-in.

Given the added costs, it may well bring a few jobs back home to boot.

> no one would like the US to constrain wheat or corn exports for example.

Are you sure? I don't know much about US agriculture exports, but the aggressively subsidised exports from the EU are known to cripple agriculture in Africa.

As is barriers to importing from Africa..

Pretty sure constraining supply would have a ripple effect on food prices everywhere because those two grains are the basis for much of "processed" foods as well as feed for meat producers, etc.

What poor African counties arguably don't need is "dumped" donated aid which undercuts their farmers and weakens their agriculture and makes them increasingly dependent on foreign aid as well as enriches and strengthens the position of those in charge of distributing this largesse (i.e. corrupt local officials)

Depends on the country in question and whether there is a humanitarian crisis. Moist of these are avoidable, such as droughts and desertification of pastures, but African farmers cannot afford measures to do it and the minor change from doing direct aid will not help.

Cradle to grave will have a downstream effect for production volumes which would lead to less work for China. Wonder if that was part of their agreement to eat the worlds waste in the first place.

Actually they warned last summer, with effectiveness this January https://www.npr.org/2017/12/09/568797388/recycling-chaos-in-...

> Every year, Britain sends China enough recyclables to fill up 10,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Greenpeace U.K. The United States exports more than 13.2 million tons of scrap paper and 1.42 m...

Wait, so is it volume or weight? Aren’t editors supposed to catch this stuff?

At least the Olympic swimming pool and short ton are official units in some jurisdictions: https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-conv...

Trash has both volume and weight. It's not either-or in the cited sentences, and the two numbers aren't supposed to be directly comparable nor convertible.

Ok, sure, but why have the reader try to do the conversion when they, the writers, should "standardize" for the reader so as to let them read on without interrupting their thought processing.

Like I said, it wasn't supposed to be directly convertible. The point of these sentences was that the UK and the US produce gigantic amounts of waste. That's it. Who of the two is worse is besides the point, and absolute numbers would only tell part of the story anyway. Since the US is much bigger, we already know it produces more waste.

Edited to add: The sentences also talk about different kinds of waste. Apples to oranges really. There's no point in converting.

How many Libraries of Congress is that?

Another article on this topic was discussed last month; I look forward to further updates on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888827

Recycling Chaos in U.S. As China Bans 'Foreign Waste' (npr.org) 318 points by srameshc 39 days ago | 233 comments

It sounds like recycling will be going to the dump until someone is willing to process it for slightly less money.

Until environmentalists sue on the grounds that our "Recycle bin" should be getting recycled (as it should).

I've been grazing for US and non-Chinese recyclers in which to invest, but haven't yet found any good values.

Is it weird that we take throwing stuff away in the trash for granted? We know that whatever we throw in there (for free) will end up in a landfill or incinerated, and somehow that's okay? I find it hard to tell that to my kids with a straight face

for free? In all USA cities I have lived there is a fee for residential trash pickup.

In most European countries it’s paid for by taxes, so you have no ideal what the real cost is.

Yeah 'for free' is a bit of a stretch, I was thinking more about public trash cans than residential. Still, the idea is you can throw away pretty much whatever, no questions asked, and someone will put it away so you don't have to think about what happens to it

It’s embarrassing and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing such incredible waste to become an acceptable part of our lives.

The relationship between this article, and the one on the end of cheap clothes in charity/goodwill shops into the supply chain for "shoddy" comes to mind

Can you link to the Goodwill article please?

I believe they're referring to "No One Wants Used Clothes Anymore" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168410

Yes. Different economy, different drivers, but a similar global economic decision logic consequence I suspect.

Perhaps this will spur American innovation to recycle reduce plastic domestically.

The American innovators are too busy figuring out ways to make people click more ads or to blow people up. /s (kind of)

Or, you know, building numerous space launch and transport systems (Boeing, SpaceX, Blue Origin) to go to the moon again and Mars.

Figuring out how to cure disease with CRISPR. Editas, Intellia, Crispr Therapeutics, and The Broad Institute, all just in Boston.

Leading the world in artificial intelligence, with only China as a close competitor, and everyone else dramatically far behind.

Leading the world in cloud computing and cloud software broadly, with only China as a close competitor, and everyone else dramatically far behind.

What are Europe's ten largest technology companies again? I really can't recall.

Leading the world, along with China, on everything mobile. There are no close competitors anywhere except for Samsung.

Leading the world in electric vehicles and driverless vehicle technology.

Leading the world in biotech, basically across the board. There are one or two major competitors in Europe doing interesting things in biotech (using US technology purchased from the likes of Genentech, InterMune, Genzyme, etc), and that's it.

Dominating pretty much every segment of technology in every country that isn't named China. In fact, dominating to such a hilarious degree, the world has to aggressively try to curb the US tech hegemony because it's too overwhelming.

Or you know, sure, figuring out ad clicking. Yeah, that's it.

You forgot leading the world in inequality and healthcare costs. For me, far far more important than going to the moon or making a car drive itself.

> You forgot leading the world in inequality

I'm not even going to say citation needed. This is just false.

Leading the world is a big stretch but "The income inequality in the United States, according to the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality where 0 is perfectly equal and 1 is perfectly unequal) is about 0.45, which is awful..."

http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/wealth-gap-america/

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

But for the worlds richest and most technologically innovative country that's a terrible charge to have on your record.

> Figuring out how to cure disease with CRISPR. Editas, Intellia, Crispr Therapeutics, and The Broad Institute, all just in Boston.

Hopefully, all that innovation might go some way to improving the health of US citizens which is frankly shocking when compared to the amount of innovation that is apparently going on.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

I feel that the first person to automate recycling and "mining" of trash at a large scale will make a lot of money. And do the world a huge favour.

I think this can only be a good thing. A depressing percentage of people have no idea that "recycling" is, for the most part, a lie, and that up until now most things you "recycled" just went in a dump like everything else, except it was a dump in China. A wake-up call as to the reality of the situation should encourage better practices.

"Recycling is largely ineffective for substances that aren't aluminum" is just the tip of the iceberg as far as truths we never mention in polite company. I'm looking forward to a phase change into a society that's more honest with itself.

And glass. And steel. And precious metals.

As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?

don't forget copper and alloys of it. and reclaimed woods that we can't afford to grow any longer. and wood fiber products. and hdpe. and lead.

no. its not like we can really close the loop, but there are a lot of things that are perfectly viable to melt down and reuse.

in my shop, and quite a lot of others, we have a crucible and a rolling mill for metal scraps of any sufficiently valuable material.

> and reclaimed woods that we can't afford to grow any longer. and wood fiber products. and hdpe.

Copper (all metal) yes. But reclaimed wood costs more than alternatives. I looked into it once - the premium I would have to pay to keep wood out of a landfill was just unrealistic.

Wood fiber is only worth it from industrial plants that create it in quantity, and without contaminants.

HDPE is not worth recycling - it costs more than just making it fresh.

I propose just burn it for energy (and thus reduce oil use). Then use that oil to make other HDPE. The lifecycle works out better that way.

You're right. Scrap metal collection, architectural salvage, and so on are all important forms of reuse. I was being a little glib and talking mostly about the kind of multiple-plastic-bin consumer goods recycling that's most visible.

Not glass. Yes metal.

Glass is so worthless for recycling, all they do with it is crush it and use it to cover landfill each night to keep down rodents and dust. That's considered "recycled".

> As for an honest society, do you have some historical reference point, or are you just aiming for utopia?

For some reason greenwashing is really prevalent among people who should know better (policy makers, scientists, environmentalists). And regular people desperately want recycling to be a real thing so that they feel better about themself.

It's a perfect match, leading to the situation we have now.

Broken glass may be essentially worthless, but intact bottles can be cleaned and refilled. Since that actually happens, I imagine the logistics involved to be somewhat cost-effective compared to making new glass (or maybe it's all fueled by subsidies).

> but intact bottles can be cleaned and refilled

Only a very small percent of them. You are probably thinking of soda bottles, and yes, they used to do that. But today it's plastic bottles (and I'm glad for it!). Milk in glass bottles is all but dead.

Most glass these days is jars for olives, and salsa, and tomato sauce, and other random things, where there is just not scale to collect them. It's not anymore all uniform, every jar is a difference size.

Beer from the very largest companies might still work, although I think it's mostly cans now. But there are a lot of small producers, and routing the glass back to them would be too expensive.

We haven't even touched on how there is basically no point in doing it anyway. The entire crust of the planet is basically made of glass. We can't run out without dismantling (discrusting? :) the planet. It's also harmless to dispose of, just crush it first.

Recycle metal, burn plastic and paper (for energy!! not for disposal!!), crush and landfill glass and other organics. Those are the most environmentally friendly options.

It takes far more energy to make new glass than to clean and reuse old glass. Even melting existing glass is valuable, as it lowers the melting point of the raw materials and therefore energy expenditure. Until glass manufacture uses solar or wind or something similar, it’s an issue.

The problem isn’t a lack of silica, it’s yet more waste of energy and pollution purely screwing is over.

Glass can only be recycled so many times and then it is worthless as you say. Value depends on the quality, color, and clarity of the glass. Given that cullet is necessary to make new glass, there is always a market for it. Best of all though, bottles can be cleaned and reused many times for a fraction of the energy cost of making new ones.

There are a lot of subtleties to recycling, some in favor generally, environmentally, and economically... some not.

No, glass is definitely recycled in the true sense at least some of the time. The key word to look for when researching this is "cullet": crushed glass used as a furnace input.

e.g. Here, http://uk.saint-gobain-glass.com/trade-customers/float-glass... : "SGG UK also utilises, on average, 30% recycled glass (cullet) in the batch, which has the additional benefit of lowering the melting point of the batch, resulting in a more efficient process."

A discussion of the problem of having too much of the wrong colour glass in UK wine bottles: https://www.glass-ts.com/userfiles/files/2005%20-%20WRAP%20-...

Heard a comedian joke recently about how he read Ted Kaczynski's stuff and it made sense until he got to the part about recycing being fake. I couldn't laugh.

And I'm looking forward to a phase change to a society where 100% waste recycling is the norm. When a society aspires to be much better than it is currently, should we really be surprised that this leads to various forms of hypocrisy? This seems to be the only ecosystem supporting planet in our solar system, so a little over-eager hope about our ability to keep it healthy for a long term future might not be completely irrational.

There is a reason why "recycle" comes last in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Unfortunately "Reduce" and "Reuse" are bad for the economy...

I wish it was possible to create a tax that would make reduce and reuse more profitable, I think EU has a legislation that makes producers responsible for recycling their products and packing material maybe extend that.

It feels ripe for abuse.

The way one ecology prof I had put it was along the line of, "The marketing guys wasted a lot of paper and plastic and ink to come up with the slogan 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' - and all the producers heard was "RECYCLE, Reuse, reduce" - with that last word being whispered. He then went on to talk about waste materials, about food waste and the related ecological damage, the lack of composting, and similar topics. American business doesn't work if people are encouraged to reduce (or as the average American will see it, 'deprive' ourselves). Reusing means that less products get sold, so the producers create one-use items with guaranteed obsolescence, and then slap a licensing agreement on top so that you don't actually own the item you paid for.

And people wonder why I'm anti-corporate.

Classic example of Whataboutism: Is plastic waste from overseas “the reason why you can’t see blue skies in China?” he asked. “I don’t think so. Go fight the big battles, not the small battles.”

Way to go China!!! We - all of us need to optimize our manufacturing and consumption systems to reduce and eliminate waste.

It probably plays a role in soil pollution and ground water contamination, china has more than just air pollution problems. China should have put a stop to this a long time ago, they also drove more expensive but more responsible options out of business. Eventually, the WTO is going to have a consider environmental impact as a reason to restrict trade.

List of what is being banned for import is here:

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename...

Plastic seems to be the important part, and 'unsorted paper' is a bit vague. So I'm thinking bulk of the paper/cardboard products atleast are unaffected.

You sort out newspaper and officepaper which is pretty ok to recycle by themselves. A mix of those and e.g. glossy magazines is pretty hard to recycle, more or less like plastic you need one type of clean plastic to get good recycled plastic.

We need to get off plastic. Gotta stop using plastic bags. And all plastic disposables that aren't biodegradable.

Reusable bottles and storage containers are absolutely essential.

Plastic bags are perfectly fine, as long as they are sturdy and can be used multiple times. Mandate minimum thickness and price perhaps? Only fabric bags are better.

Paper bags are about as bad as single use plastic ones. They take a lot of water to produce and energy to mill. The only difference is they are more biodegradable in a landfill.

This id's similar to situation with plastic vs glass bottles. Sturdy plastic ones are better, but since three is no mandate to standardize and make them sturdy, they get recycled instead of reused. That costs a lot of energy. (Though less than recycling glass.)

I think a more appropriate title would read something like: "... China refuses to take the West's trash anymore"

I would love to see packaging switch to corn based plastics or maybe some other type where the plastic would decompose faster.

Unfortunately most likely not going to happen because of how cheap plastic is.

Fortunately though there is some interesting research in how to break it down.

"From garbage to gold: How advances in plastic recycling can help save the environment"[https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/06/advances-recyclin...]

(https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/06/27/ibm-research-scientis...)

>On Monday, IBM Research said that scientists from the Almaden lab found a way to transform polycarbonates into a stronger type of plastic that doesn’t leach BPA, a chemical that has sparked health concerns in recent years.

there is a technology available called thermal depolymerization that can convert some of this into energy. I could never figure out if it was not net positive for the only reason it isn't done. Even if it isn't net positive, if they placed the recycling center near an area with surplus electricity, and melt it down into some fuel on low peaks, I think that would be a positive. Would somebody please tell me if its feasible?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization

Yes, but produces nasty pollution, often chemical and hard to scrub. Consider it a version 2 of usual burning.

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