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China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

bloomberg.com

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Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#191

Post by leesalminen »

ars wrote: post #85
wool_gather wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't expect people to transport their recycling Why on earth not? The majority used to haul their own garbage to the town dump a just few decades ago (and some still do in smaller towns). Ubiquity of curbside pickup is relatively new -- doubly so for recycling. And recyclables are a heck of a lot more pleasant to carry in the car than rotting kitchen scraps.

And if you don't have a car? Or are not strong enough to carry lots of trash? Or the dump is far enough away to make transporting recycling counterproductive?

We have curbside trash but no recycling and are about 15 miles (+3000 ft elevation change) to the recycling drop off center. I’ve wondered if cranking the engine on the pickup is worth it in fuel consumption.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#192

Post by cdolan »

state_less wrote: post #29
JulianMorrison wrote: post #7

We need to stop making things out of plastic, where any alternative exists. The stuff is going to be the asbestos of the 21st century. Microplastic has been vastly, vastly underrated as a problem. All my lifetime the attitude has been that plastic takes eons to degrade and pulverize, but when it does, the problem of unsightly or dangerous litter is presumably finished. Now we're seeing the opposite: plastic dust is a…

Plastic is an amazing material. You can thermoform it, it's a great insulator, molds and fungi don't feed on it, it's incredibly strong (e.g. UHMWPE rope a.k.a dyneema) and so on. The trouble seems to be we don't really respect the environment enough, so we use it in terrible ways, like single use products. We often don't need those nice properties in single use products, yet we use it anyway because we don't pay due…

Glass bottles are only valuable if they are not broken. However a lot of bottles break as part of any recycling or reuse process.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#193

Post by cdolan »

eli wrote: post #39

I feel like this is one of the most important underreported stories today. It's a massive, sudden change that is having ripple affects on the entire global supply chain. We've written quite a bit about it on Waste Dive: https://www.wastedive.com/news/what-chinese-import-policies-... California is particularly hard hit and is likely to relax laws about how much recyclable material is allowed to be sent to landfills. T…

As a fellow member of the waste and recycling industry, thank you for your work. I love Smart City and Waste Dives.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#194

Post by quantum_magpie »

p3llin0r3 wrote: post #46
athenot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many different types of plastics. Some end up in nature as tiny pieces like you mention and are indeed very bad for the ecosystem. But it's also possible to set up a proper recycling & valorization system. Northern Europe already does it: over 98% of consumer plastics are either recycled or valorized through heat (producing power or city heating). Despite that, there's an effort to address the low-hanging f…

Preventing plastic in Europe would have basically no effect on plastic in the ocean. The problem is people with poor waste management infrastructure tossing their junk into the rivers and oceans in developing countries. https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...

The waste thrown into the rivers and oceans in developing countries is from the US and the EU.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#195

Post by oldcynic »

kragen wrote: post #145
JulianMorrison wrote: post #7

We need to stop making things out of plastic, where any alternative exists. The stuff is going to be the asbestos of the 21st century. Microplastic has been vastly, vastly underrated as a problem. All my lifetime the attitude has been that plastic takes eons to degrade and pulverize, but when it does, the problem of unsightly or dangerous litter is presumably finished. Now we're seeing the opposite: plastic dust is a…

The biggest problem with making statements about "plastic" is that it's such a broad category of materials that you almost invariably doom yourself to talking nonsense. Most plastic (particularly PET, PP, HDPE, and LDPE) is not poisonous, even when decomposed, and does not bioaccumulate in the conventional sense. Perhaps by "poison sponge" you don't mean that it's poisonous; you mean that it absorbs poisons. Well, is…

> Individual car weight has diminished enormously during the last 50 years

Actually quite the reverse. Individual car weight has increased enormously. The Mk1 Volkswagen Golf (1974) weighed 790-970kg. The current Mk7 weighs 1351-1395kg. An F Type Jag is 200kg heavier than an E Type.

Cars have been increasing in size such that a "Mini" is anything but (try parking one next to the original Issigonis Mini). They contain a vast range of electrical toys like aircon, ABS, airbags that add a lot of weight, and structural features like crumple zones, catalytic converters and so on. Some is the result of mandated emissions and crash regs, a lot is a result of feature-itis from the manufacturers.

That's quite apart from the trend of people choosing ever larger models, and SUVs over saloons and hatchbacks. That fashion just exacerbates the issue.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#196

Post by FrozenVoid »

state_less wrote: post #29
JulianMorrison wrote: post #7

We need to stop making things out of plastic, where any alternative exists. The stuff is going to be the asbestos of the 21st century. Microplastic has been vastly, vastly underrated as a problem. All my lifetime the attitude has been that plastic takes eons to degrade and pulverize, but when it does, the problem of unsightly or dangerous litter is presumably finished. Now we're seeing the opposite: plastic dust is a…

Plastic is an amazing material. You can thermoform it, it's a great insulator, molds and fungi don't feed on it, it's incredibly strong (e.g. UHMWPE rope a.k.a dyneema) and so on. The trouble seems to be we don't really respect the environment enough, so we use it in terrible ways, like single use products. We often don't need those nice properties in single use products, yet we use it anyway because we don't pay due…

Better biodegradable plastics and alternatives: https://natsci.source.colostate.edu/biorenewable-biodegradab... https://physicsworld.com/a/100-biodegradable-packaging-compa...

There is a switch to paper(cellulose)-based products https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-05/the-fight... https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/06/15/mcdonalds-te...

Glass bottles are coming back https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/glass-milk-bottles...

Aluminum and glass replacing plastic in premium smartphones

Plastic stickers replaced by laser engraving http://www.dw.com/en/finally-an-alternative-to-plastic-for-l...

Bubble wrap replaced by new package geometry https://www.adweek.com/creativity/could-this-alternative-to-...

Beeswax food wrap http://www.trurodaily.com/business/beezy-wrap-a-sustainable-...

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#197

Post by mmt »

fosco wrote: post #185
rkda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, and this is only anecdata, drinks in glass bottles seem to taste so much better for some reason.

more anecdata - I have the same experience, I cannot tell if it is in my head [0] or there is actually a difference [0] for example some people claim food tastes different based on weight of their utensils etc... It is hard for me to accept my brain is not tricking me when drinks in glass taste better than can/plastic of the same drink

> It is hard for me to accept my brain is not tricking me when drinks in glass taste better than can/plastic of the same drink

Although we use the word "taste" to describe the experience, even that is well understood to be a methaphor for taste and smell.

What's more, I think it's also pretty well understood that texture is an important component of how people perceive (dare I say "taste"?) what they eat.

As such, I don't think you need to resort to accusing your brain of trickery to conclude a different experience when drinking from a can or from bottles of different composition.

On the other hand, if they're both first poured into identical glass highballs before being consumed.. that's another matter.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#198

Post by kalleboo »

s0rce wrote: post #180
Sukram21 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distributor will only take the empty ones that resemble the type he delivers => this is a supply chain. That’s why you can’t just return any type of reusable bottles at a store, but just the ones it is also selling.

You can do what Ontario used to do for beer and make everyone use the same bottle. Can't see that happening with branding being so important. http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/beer-a-sad-farewell-to-stub...

Sweden did the same thing for soda. National standard glass bottles that could be recycled anywhere (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Returglasflaska). Although now a decline in sales of single-portion drinks (people preferred buying 1.5 liter PET bottles to cases of 33cl soda bottles) has lead to the near-death of glass bottles outside of alcohol. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/priset-dubblades-nar-lask...

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#199

Post by rland »

bmer wrote: post #176
RealityVoid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unconvinced by this argument. I would like to believe it, but I can't, I would need some numbers, for example, how much of the available terrain do we cover with trash each year? I think I'd instinctively agree with you if landfills were everywhere... but they are not. They actually seem to be pretty constant in proportion to the space human population occupies, and if this is so, they aren't a bigger problem th…

> They actually seem to be pretty constant in proportion to the space human population occupies, and if this is so, they aren't a bigger problem than human spread and encroachment of wilderness. I didn't make any claims landfills grow in space at a faster rate than other human land uses, and like you, I agree that they probably just increase linearly with human spread (maybe even more slowly than linearly). My point…

By the time we hit "peak earth land," any unexploited landfill will be worth a fortune, as they will be tremendously resource rich in comparison to 'regular' land.

It's far more likely that in a hundred years (or less!) we will be digging through landfills to recycle some material that we throw away today.

Re: China is no longer importing waste – 111M tons will have to go elsewhere

#200

Post by [deleted] »

eli wrote: post #120
bmer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landfills are not sustainable, and are best used as a stop gap measure. It might seem like we have lots of easily accessible empty land right now, but eventually easily accessible land is going to become harder to find. It seems that it would be wise to come up with a sustainable solution, rather than assuming we can rely on a non-renewable resource forever. That being said, why can't volcanoes be used as some sort o…

The same reasons we don't just burn all our trash in incinerators plus the inaccessibility and relatively small number of active volcanoes.

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