We need to stop making things out of plastic, where any alternative exists.<p>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 poison sponge that bioaccumulates and has got absolutely everywhere.
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.<p>We've written quite a bit about it on Waste Dive: <a href="https://www.wastedive.com/news/what-chinese-import-policies-mean-for-all-50-states/510751/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wastedive.com/news/what-chinese-import-policies-...</a> California is particularly hard hit and is likely to relax laws about how much recyclable material is allowed to be sent to landfills. There's nowhere else for it to go.
"Plastic Recycling" always seemed like such a scam. Very little of it can be turned into the same thing it was, before. Most of it can only be downcycled to an inferior product (and then it's mostly the end of the line). To think we've simply shipped it off to another country to deal with the problem is criminal. Another part of my childhood where the details were far less idealistic than the big picture.
More like there was a huge trash problem and they don't want it anymore... how is them handing the world a problem when the root cause of the problem is unsustainable packaging and recyclables?
One of the unintended consequences of that is more waste import to Poland, which increased taxes on it to limit it which prompted owners of the dumps to set them on fire<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger_for_europeans_health_garbage_from/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8p7wnr/major_danger...</a>
There was a better article about this earlier this year in the New York Times:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-recyclables-ban.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-recyclables-b...</a><p>Corresponding HN thread:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16174719</a>
What's wrong with putting it in landfills? The world has no shortage of wasteland. If we can afford to ship it to China, can't we spend the same money driving it on trucks into a nearby desert or valley?
This is actually great news. Western people will have to get innovate about avoiding garbage, plastic in particular. Oceans will intake less waste<p>(Yes, I’m optimistic about this one)
Seems like Northern Africa would be a pretty logical place for disposing waste. Lots of unused desert land very close to the sea for easy access by barge.
I am not an expert but I am a PhD chemical engineer and I have though about this issue for years and years.<p>My 0.02...<p>Short term<p>---------------<p>a) give houses smaller trash cans and charge a lot for bigger trash cans. Town I live in already does this... at first I was like "wtf with this tiny trash can... I can throw away like one, two bags of trash tops per week"... well, now my household of 4 averages one bag of half full bag of trash per week. we do more composting and more recycling.<p>b) double down on recycling programs and sorting.<p>Short- to Mid-term<p>--------------------<p>c) we should be burning 100% of our actual trash in localized facilities. We trade the negative of immediate CO2 green gas emissions<i></i> but we get:<p>-- some power in return<p>-- reduced diesel fuel use (at like 4 miles a gallon)... assuming the trip to local burn facility is shorter than out of landfill<p>-- huge reduction methane release from landfill,<p>-- 100% elimination of continued landfill pollution and water table pollution by god knows what (drugs, plastics, leaking batteries, etc.<p><i></i> The CO2 effluent stream can be captured and processed in many interesting ways. The CO2 is so clean it can be used for beverage or biotech service and/or feed for a CO2 to polymer (plastic building block) plant.<p>Many modern burn facilities burn so hot [and completely] they could be certified to deal with bio-hazard and chemical weapon destruction. They have gas scrubbing systems advamced enough that only N2, O2, and CO2 are emitted from the plant (NOx, SOx, etc. level are parts per billion levels)... no complex chemical species, no metals, leave the plant through the gas effluent.<p>We were/are doing this... but all this NIMBY nonsense is leading to some collectively destructive group-think<i>... many folks don't want to see burn facilities near their house and there is a lot of money to be made in our current trash mismanagement system. </i>Actually, most of our thinking is collectively destructive group-think so "what's new?"<p>Edit: <a href="http://www.lacsd.org/solidwaste/swfacilities/rtefac/commerce/default.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.lacsd.org/solidwaste/swfacilities/rtefac/commerce...</a>
I visited that facility in the 90's... it was great. Now it is closing... not sure if it being replaced.<p>Long-term<p>------------<p>d)We need packaging laws and taxes that address waste caused by excessive/unnecessary packaging... particularly for commercial/industrial use.<p>e)Society needs to refocus our value system to value simplicity and localized self-sufficiency: local fresh food over packaged/frozen goods, more reusable (and infinitely recycle-able) locally filled glass containers<p>f) localized recycle-to-manufacturing pipelines. Imagine a future where you could take polyethylene scrap down to a local facility get it 3D printed into something you or someone else can use (or get a spool of PE line to use in your own 3D printer at home).
So what is the likelyhood that rich countries - not having the recycling capacity to deal properly with their own waste - find some other, much poorer countries (other than the ones mentioned) to use as their garbage dump?<p>Seems likely to me. Is this already happening?
much duplicity all around on this obviously-important topic .. here is a blog (discontinued) specifically on Electronics topic <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/*/ewasteinsights.info/*" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/*/ewasteinsights.info/*</a>
May sound silly but could we send it into space instead of burying it? Surely it could be sent on a trajectory to burn up at the sun or another planet’s atmosphere. I guess the obvious issue is cost, are there others?
Long story short: China has been importing trash from many countries for the past two decades. Now they won't import it anymore, and these countries aren't prepared to dispose of the trash themselves. The 111m-ton figure is an estimate by 2030, the current amount is nowhere near that number.
We could (and maybe should) demand in trade deals that if you ship us plastic, you take it back.<p>Easy to enforce? I dunno - why not require country of origin for packaging?<p>But assuming that won't happen - sounds like an opportunity for US jobs.<p>Plastic might make decent bricks for building.
That's hilariously ironic because China is the biggest exporter of plastics.<p>1.) China: $17.9B (24.7% of exported plastic items)<p>2.) Germany $9B (12.4%)<p><a href="http://www.worldstopexports.com/plastic-item-exports-country/" rel="nofollow">http://www.worldstopexports.com/plastic-item-exports-country...</a><p>plastics are now drowning the ocean, choking fishes (which the Chinese fisherman has a habit of overfishing, even going out to other countries' sea to fish). not to mention coral diseases, as well as microfibers ingested by humans. And China just dump plastics into their rivers and out into the ocean. letting the other countries take care of them.<p>Also, interestingly, China's boom in the early 90s came from the fact that they lacked materials, and they had to take other countries waste in order to use the waste for materials for production. Now that China's boycotting waste, the other southeast asian countries are picking up the slack (and waste), and growing their own industrial capabilities. That's why now manufacturers usually have two or three different factories in different countries, lessening dependence on China, and ready to switch when they need to (like the impending $400 billion tariff on China)