It is not fair to allow some countries to make decisions based on economics but expect others to be ecologically responsible. Let's see how the US handles its own trash now, since China has stopped importing it.
Well, there was a New York Times article a few weeks ago about how the cardboard that used to be shipped to China for recycling is now being recycled domestically into Amazon boxes, and paper mills in Wisconsin are reopening, being retrofitted to handle recycled cardboard, and bringing workers back to run them.
Serious question. I mean people are acting like the fact that the Chinese government is stamping out the business of exporting trash is a crisis. Is it possible we can just dump it in a landfill?
If so, why not just do that?
If not, ok, then I understand why everyone is up in arms.
In honesty, burying undigestible plastics seems like a great way for carbon sequestration.
I'm not claiming you're caricaturing the argument, to be clear--I'm just curious if there's another angle to consider.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfil...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...
That's just it though, isn't it? They don't, really.
My understanding of the "crisis" is that all those well-intentioned recyclers were duly sorting their plastics, which was then picked up by their municipality for "recycling" and then shipped straight to a developing country where it was just dropped on the ground. And everyone felt good about themselves, and nothing was done.
Had recycling not been turned into an "out of sight, out of mind" problem, this whole thing could have been averted and some kind of actual clean disposal or reduction implemented.
Because some countries take a lot less money to - supposedly and according to their word - do that job cleanly for us.
We know that in fact they are probably lying, but it is quite difficult to do business like that. If we refused to make business with those countries on that basis, we would be accused of discrimination.
I mean, isn't the entire crisis that China does not take the trash anymore?
So if we have all this trash, why can't we just put it in a landfill?
At some point in the past, someone proposed that we send plastic overseas for recycling. Win win right?
If any one counter-proposed that it be buried they'd be considered a bad person.
Other animals live on this planet too. Is it fair for us to refuse to make even a small change but expect land and sea animals to deal with our plastic waste?
The landfill solution is another way of saying "put it somewhere I can't see." Would we like plastic storms around own our homes?
Less single use plastic containers. In fact, less plastic containers period. More metal containers, more glass containers, and yes, you will have to reuse them. More recycled paper, etc etc etc.
Oh yeah, and our kids don't really need all these plastic toys we buy them. Maybe it wouldn't be a terrible thing for them to have to go outside and play like we did?
Just those two right there would probably make a small bu meaningful dent. Probably a lot of other places we could draw down as well.
Sure, I played outside a lot as a kid, but I also had plenty of plastic toys, too.
(Note: born in the early 1970s)
[1] http://theconversation.com/the-world-of-plastics-in-numbers-..., https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782/tab-fig...
My assumptions are that packaging for consumer products ends up in the "packaging" bar and not the "consumer products" bar, and that plastic-based consumer textiles similarly end up under "textiles" and not "consumer products", and probably something similar happening with stuff hiding inside the "other" bar.
And yeah, I do think that we as consumers should take some responsibility. I would like to some regulatory action or excise taxes, sure. But, even without that, I can still at least try and put some demand-side pressure on things by, for example, preferentially choosing products that aren't in plastic packaging. Or even avoiding making a purchase altogether when it's not necessary to do so and my only options come in disposable plastic containers.