- eCycle Florida
China will no longer take our Junk for recycling
Incentive To Innovate: China Will No Longer Take Our Junk For Recycling Beijing notified the World Trade Organization in July that it planned to ban imports of 24 varieties of solid waste, including types of plastic and unsorted paper commonly sent from the United States. The reason given was environmental protection: Large amounts of dirty and hazardous constituents are often mixed with these materials, which can lead to...
Beijing notified the World Trade Organization in July that it planned to ban imports of 24 varieties of solid waste, including types of plastic and unsorted paper commonly sent from the United States. The reason given was environmental protection: Large amounts of dirty and hazardous constituents are often mixed with these materials, which can lead to serious environmental pollution.
However, this ban creates its own environmental problems. More waste will be landfilled or incinerated. More virgin materials will be mined or manufactured. This also puts $5 billion of our recycling industry in jeopardy, leaving millions of tons of material orphaned and driving prices for recycled materials into a downward spiral that could severely harm our domestic recycling industry. The Chinese ban is part of a broader customs program called Operation Green Fence, which endeavors to reduce imports of contaminated materials into the country.America’s recycling industry will be heavily impacted since scrap and waste represent the sixth-largest U.S. export to China. For many materials collected by our recycling programs, sufficient markets and processing capability do not really exist outside China. Even worse, it’s often a lot cheaper to ship recyclable materials from the United States to China than to transport the same materials by road or rail even a short distance domestically. Because of our huge trade deficit with China, a large number of container ships transport consumer goods from China to American ports. But there is almost nothing to return on the empty ships, so shipping companies offer major discounts on return runs to China.
However, this ban creates its own environmental problems. More waste will be landfilled or incinerated. More virgin materials will be mined or manufactured. This also puts $5 billion of our recycling industry in jeopardy, leaving millions of tons of material orphaned and driving prices for recycled materials into a downward spiral that could severely harm our domestic recycling industry. The Chinese ban is part of a broader customs program called Operation Green Fence, which endeavors to reduce imports of contaminated materials into the country. America's recycling industry will be heavily impacted since scrap and waste represent the sixth-largest U.S. export to China. For many materials collected by our recycling programs, sufficient markets and processing capability do not really exist outside China. Even worse, it’s often a lot cheaper to ship recyclable materials from the United States to China than to transport the same materials by road or rail even a short distance domestically. Because of our huge trade deficit with China, a large number of container ships transport consumer goods from China to American ports. But there is almost nothing to return on the empty ships, so shipping companies offer major discounts on return runs to China.
Which is sad because we move, mine, extract, shovel, burn, waste, pump and dispose of 4,000 tons of material in order to provide the needs of a single average middle-class American family for just one year. Upwards of a trillion tons of material a year for the country as a whole provides a rich reservoir of potential recycled materials. So why is China the biggest importer of these recycled materials? Because China uses an astounding amount of raw materials annually and recycling is a good source of cheap material. China consumes 54% of the world’s aluminum, 48% of its copper, 50% of all nickel, 45% of all steel and 60% of all concrete. China has consumed more concrete in just the last three years than the United States did in the entire 20th century.The story is similar for energy. China uses 49% of the world’s coal, 13% of the world’s uranium and 12% of all oil. Total annual energy use for China is 130 quadrillion BTUs and growing, probably tripling by 2040, when China is predicted to peak.
The United States uses 100 quadrillion BTUs. Our energy use is relatively flat and should grow only slowly. Recycling began in America in 1690 when the Rittenhouse Mill in Philadelphia started recycling linen and cotton rags to produce paper sold to printers for use in Bibles and newspapers. Recycling rose from there to over 30% of our materials just before WWI as resources were scarce in our fast-growing economy. It then shrank as manufacturing grew and our throw-away society began in earnest.Then in the 1970s, recycling picked up again, this time out of environmental concern, not to save scarce resources.
At present, the American scrap recycling industry produces $20 billion worth of material each year, handling approximately 120 million tons of recyclables, destined for both domestic use and overseas markets.In general, most studies agree that recycling is better for the environment. America recycles over 32% of our municipal rubbish, saving over 50 million tons of carbon emissions. In addition, most agree the recycling saves materials and money. However, that seems to always be the case only for metals, like aluminum, copper and steel. Recycling of aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source. One ton of recycled steel saves 642 kWhs of energy, 1.8 barrels of oil, 10.9 million BTUs of energy, and four cubic yards of landfill space.But recycling costs vary city to city and depend on many factors, including proximity to landfills, labor costs, real estate prices, and the amount and the methods of recycling. California fully supports recycling of all kinds.
The state has 4,342 recycling facilities that employ over 84,000 people, with an annual payroll of $2.25 billion and gross revenues of $14.2 billion. For every job in recycling, eight jobs are created through manufacturing the recovered material into a new product.But for New York, the economics seem poor. Glass, metal and plastic recycling costs New York $240 per ton, almost double what it costs to just throw it away. Saving landfill space may not be as big a deal as usually thought, either, and is not a sufficient reason for recycling. And it’s not like we can’t be innovative when we want to. Recently, Columbia Pulp in Washington State announced it would use a new technology to recycle agricultural waste, like straw, into paper, replacing wood chips from forests, saving energy and chemicals, and reducing carbon emissions. We are now using high-tech methods to sort and separate various materials so we don’t make home owners sort it themselves and we don’t have to sort by hand at the recycling facility, which is costly.
From simple magnetics to new near-infrared-based spectroscopic waste-sorting systems, a computer is able to determine the color, type, shape and position of each item. Air jets then push particular items from one conveyor belt to another, or into a bin. Numerous types of paper and plastic can be sorted with up to 98% accuracy – better than human workers manage. So the best response to China’s ban is to innovate so we can use more of these materials here in the United States. We also need to clean and separate our materials better so they will be acceptable to China and the growing recycling markets in South Asia and Latin America. But no matter what happens, recycling is still a good thing to do – with or without China’s help.
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