Local
Impact of Chinese Ban on Recyclables
By Albert B. Kelly
A couple of weeks ago in this space, I wrote about
Bridgeton’s policy of requiring residents to pay a $3 fee for a yellow sticker for
any trash or bulk item outside the container at curbside for pick-up. Some people
believe the requirement invites illegal dumping because people duck the fee and
the stickers. The stickers are a way to control tonnage and keep rates in check
and we’re digging into the data to measure effectiveness.
But in researching things and looking at the big picture on
solid waste, trash hauling, recycling, disposal, and landfills I was struck by
the fact that solid waste and recycling is a complicated industry and more than
that, our waste is connected to a global chain. That is quite a change from the
days when trash used to be strictly a local thing when we found a spot
somewhere in the community to dump the stuff simply to be rid of it.
But those days are long gone, which brings me to my point
about China. For the last couple of decades, the U.S. has basically shipped our
recycling to China. As an emerging country, China accepted our garbage, they
sorted it, sifted it, processed it and made whatever items out of it which
worked well for us because we didn’t have to think about it- we just loaded it
on a barge and sent it out to sea.
But China is no longer an emerging country and they no
longer want or need our trash and recyclables. A research article in “Science
Advances” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says
that since 1992, China has accepted 45% of the world’s plastic waste. In 2017
China banned the import of plastic waste and that ban went into effect in
January. We haven’t noticed here yet, but we will.
The thing to know is that what we call recycling is known
“single stream” which means that everything- glass, plastic, paper, cardboard, and
certain metal- is all thrown into the one container and picked up at curbside.
Compare this to what is known as multi-stream recycling where residents
separate paper from cardboard from glass from plastic before placing out for
pick-up.
What made exporting our waste to China so convenient was
that, in addition to taking our waste, they also took it “as is” meaning
workers in China would separate the glass from the plastic from the paper, etc.
With the Chinese ban in place, we no longer have the luxury of shipping our
waste to foreign shores, nor do we have the option of having cheap labor
separate our waste so it can be broken down and used again in a new form.
In terms of Bridgeton and every other community around the
country, the impact of the Chinese ban on importing waste will show itself when
it comes time to renew contracts for solid waste pick-up, recycling, and
disposal. My guess is that so long as there was a market for recyclable
materials and other countries accepted our waste and had the cheap labor to
separate it, trash rates here could be kept in relatively low.
But lacking market demand and cheap labor, we’ll need the
facilities to actually recycle materials (i.e. sort, wash, extrude, compress,
etc.). And whether the bulk of the work that happens with recycling gets done
by robotic arms or American hands, we will have to pay for it and it won’t be
cheap. According to the experts, the United States pumps out roughly 230
million tons of trash per day and only about 25% of this gets recycled. The recycling
rate in Germany is over 60%.
All around the country over the next couple of years, municipal
contracts with companies like Waste Management, Inc. and Republic Services,
Inc. - contracts that were priced when China still took our waste- will come to
an end and any new contracts will reflect the costs of dealing with our own
solid waste and recycling.
With years as a CCIA board member, I’m mindful of the many
unanswered questions. Will we be willing to pay higher rates to keep single
stream recycling? Would we be willing to separate our recyclable materials into
multiple streams as is the case in other countries? Will we have a choice? Regardless,
change is coming and I suspect it won’t be cheap. When it does come, $3 yellow
stickers might seem like the good old days.