Wouldn’t it be nice if American ingenuity in the form of, oh, say, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos Billions stopped playing with rockets just long enough to set up a rational and national recycling system?
I suspect that if those two would inject a fraction of their rocket ship money into mixed plastics recycling research, we would have a system in place in 5-10 years.
You know, guys, putting your money into something that actually matters in your customer’s (and their grandkid’s) lives!?
62
Plastic is a huge problem, and recycling just nibbles at the edges. It is not viable in the long term. (There are other villains too, but plastic is the biggest.) Everyone knows about the great Pacific garbage patch. It has been known since at least 2001 that we all now have plastic in our blood:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173267/
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/food-thought/how-plastic-weve-become
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5351661/Chemicals-plastic-90-teenage-bodies.html
A good long term solution is to impose a "future generations tax" on every plastic product. The manufacturer should have to pay a fee to cover the ultimate disposal of the product at the end of its useful life, since this disposal invariable falls to government entities. We can argue about the amount of the fee, but the idea needs to be initiated. Companies should no longer be able to externalize this cost, and poison the commons for free. Of course the cost will be passed on to us. Good. It will force us to look for alternatives, and maybe we will change our behavior and eschew plastic water bottles, packaging, shopping bags, toys, etc.
21
The docks definitely remind me of a scene from Wall-E, the fictional Pixar movie about the little trash compacting robot left remaining on earth to clean up the trash that those who had to abandon it left behind, who realizes the joy of life from the only cockroach still left living. In real life we should only hope the cockroach survives as well.
5
The title is misleading. Are these countries happy to accept Asia's trash? Japan is second on the list of nations sending their recyclable trash to Southeast Asia. According to a South Korean government report issued in 2016, South Korea is the biggest consumer of disposable plastic products globally, producing 98.2 kg per person. The problem is global, fed by mass consumerism, regardless of East or West.
The reality is that whatever solution is tried, the capitalist model of marketing products that maximize individual consumption is unsustainable. Recent studies show turning to paper or even cotton tote bags is even less environmentally sustainable than reusable plastic bags. A recent article in the Guardian reported a study where so-called "biodegradables" were dug up and found not to have degraded at all.
There is no free lunch, folks. In the 1970s, when President Jimmy spoke to a new era of frugality, he was laughed at instead of lauded and then global mass marketing went into high gear. When the party's over, someone has to clean up the mess. How do you find a market solution to environmental degradation on a global scale when the market itself is the problem?
28
The day before yesterday the "Guardian" had an article on our ingestion of micro-plastics.
15% of the common foods we eat had been analyzed for micro-plastics.
The biggest contaminators were single-serve water bottles.
It was found that (given the 15% tested) that we unknowingly ingest over 50,000 micro-particles a year.
We are going to go the way of the whales, with our guts packed solid, allowing in no nutrients.
So, do we die gasping for air because the temp is too high for us to breathe - or do we starve to death?
9
I really appreciate the reporting on this issue from the trash importing countries' perspective, and I hope it will be possible also why US cities and states have reduced recycling their own waste in US. Could environmentally sound recycling help create jobs in the US and reduce consumption of new plastic product?
9
I got myself a CO_2 tank (5 lb capacity) with a regulator, a hose, and connector, and am making seltzer water from tap water almost every day. I have used ONE plastic bottle for more than 1/2 year now and reduced my plastic (and aluminium) waste considerably.
8
The US could easily build a couple of dozen regional incinerators and even equip with CO2 scrubbers. It would cost far more than just dumping plastic in third would countries, but the stuff does burn and therefore it can easily be used to generate electricity.
11
The solution to our copious amounts of trash is not to find another hapless third-world country to which to ship it, but rather to produce less trash. How about fewer disposable trinkets (which were manufactured in these countries in the first place)?
24
I propose loading up dozens of large transport planes with garbage, medical waste, etc., and opening the back cargo doors over Duterte's house.
2
The baby boom generation grew up reusing glass beverage bottles. They were collected, washed and reused. Why can’t we do this again?
24
@Michael Talbert
Because the problem is gargantuan. Glass beverage bottles are are a grain of sand on the global beach of throw-away plastic. But you make a good point--if we could do it a few decades ago with bottles why not now with plastic wrappers and containers? Shop with cloth bags to carry your groceries. Don't buy food that is packaged in plastic--or unwrap it right in the store and leave them the wrappings. They, and the suppliers, will get the message. In the produce department don't use separate plastic bags for what you buy--pack your grocery bag with care and put the more delicate items on top. Berries used to come in molded paper containers that could be used again. Where are they now? With meat or fish you might ask the butcher/fish monger, to wrap your purchases in paper as they used to do. Ingenuity and forethought can free us from a great deal of waste plastic.
16
we are immigrants and since arrived, we bought only natural Christmas tree.
one time, i bought a tree and the clerk was surprised and didnt buy a stand. why should a buy a stand when the stand we bought with our first tree is still good?
this made me thinking that Americans throw the Christmas tree together with the stand after the new year and come christmas time, buy it together again..year after year..and what a waste of plastic.
another is the water bottle. after a year or 2 of recycling water bottles, which is a hassle and waste of time bringing to the recyclers, i bought a "water purifier" from Costco and now we put to good use our tap water.
17
Someone is making our plastic stuff. What happens to industry if the US institutes a ban on plastic that cannot be recycled, and requires corporations to create acceptable ways--to the world, not just to Mitch McConnell--to recycle every product sold in and by companies in the United States? Are we talking about putting rag-pickers out of business in India? Are we talking about growing a larger criminal underclass of "waste management" throughout the world? What *are* the negative consequences of banning plastics, long and short term? I'm asking.
2
@Lexicron If plastic is banned, the market will adjust. The people and companies benefiting from production, sale and etc. related to plastic will switch to something new. And we will be rid of plastic. Well, in a few hundred years, maybe.
7
So....STOP PRODUCING all this waste! This is not rocket science. Packaging should either be compostable or reusable.
21
... perhaps a ban on those infuriating clear plastic bubble packages that one needs surgical skills to get into would be a publicly popular place to start?
10
I wonder how long it will take Trump to set up some polluting recycling plants in blue states so that he can import garbage to balance the trade imbalance ...
4
When I was a little kid I heard the adults say that we need to make a biodegradable plastic. I bet the beginning of the end of the world will be dated to the invention of plastic.
They also said the US needed a sensible national health care system.
9
The classic privatize the profit and publicize the true cost of business, the Western model, is a death knell for the planet. Simple solution: require all manufacturers to handle the waste associated with their products. If they won’t, or can’t, then it’s not allowed. I’m sure the “free” market will come to the rescue of properly regulated.
24
WHy not put the costs of the disposal of packaging onto the maker of the the product and see how long they stick to plastic. This isn't about individual consumer choices, it's about corporation decisions that get foisted onto the world and all biodegradable options disappear. You'd think that all people would want to protect our earth, and largely they do. But corporations are not people.
29
Why not put the cost on the consumer who buys the stuff?
2
The “stuff”, fine. Who gets stuck with the packaging? If I can’t buy the stuff without buying packaging I can’t recycle whose fault is that?
6
The good will between the U.S. and every other nation on earth has been obliterated. Objecting to collecting our garbage is just the beginning of a backlash that is the new normal.
13
Proper disposal costs and methods should be included in the price of every product sold. The real goal should be to reduce consumption. Let's not pretend recycling is easy, and let's not lose sight of the fact that recycling consumes energy and resources.
30
Americans recycle very little of their plastics. i was surprised to read the numbers compared to Europe .
The USA recycle only 7 to 9 % of the plastic used. And they use 10 time more than in Europe.
Germany recycles 44 % .
In Europe nobody eats in plastic.
In the USA everybody eats in plastic everyday.
Plastic is everywhere in the oceans , in fish and in the food chain.
When are Americans going to realize the national problem ?
16
@JPH
Recycling is required in my town, but the much larger problem is the manufacturing of single use plastic. Look around and see how many containers in your home only come in plastic, including organically grown berries. Shampoo bottles, laundry detergent, vegetable containers, etc. etc. The list is endless. Until and unless government and industry puts an end to this plastic madness, I'm afraid we're doomed, as individuals can do very little by themselves.
2
@sohy yes . Americans go by labels.
If there is such thing as recycling. They think they recycle. But they don't.
And they consume in plastic constantly and trash everything together.
Even if they recycle a bit.
Look at the numbers compared to Europe. The recycling in the USA is ridiculous. Less than 10 %.
@sohy we don't put fruits or vegetable in plastic in Europe. Why do you do it here ?
Also lots of detergents come in card board packages or in thinner soft plastic tubrs. In the US everything is hard plastic.
2
Wonder what the green new deal says (about recycling). Having worked in a recycling plant I know it gives jobs to people in need. How to help with unskilled jobs and reduce waste in oceans.
6
I wondered where exactly the trash was going. It's got to go somewhere.
I think we need to put things in perspective though. Only 9 percent of global plastic waste is recycled anyway. The United States actually ranks quite low on the list of developed nations of even getting our recycling to Asia in the first place.
Also consider, 139,000 tons of plastic might seem like a lot to Malaysia but the figure is minimal when you figure there are 8 billion tons of plastic waste in the world with another 4 billion on the way before 2050. We're talking about a number in the one thousandth percentile of the overall problem.
Asia is also hypocritical in their rejection of plastic waste as a sizable portion of the world's plastic is produced in Asia. China accounts for 28 percent of global resin and 68 percent of polyester polyamide and acrylic fibers. Roughly 26 percent of all plastic globally or more than twice the amount as the next highest producer, the United States. So while southeast Asia is by far the biggest importer of plastic waste, they are also suffering from a problem they literally helped create.
Meanwhile, we need mention the same region is the biggest region for mishandled plastic waste as well. For all the concerns about recycling imports, these countries are often struggling with their own domestic failure more than the import/export industry.
We need to take these points under consideration before drawing any definitive conclusions.
4
I think your analysis and interpretation of source data is not completely accurate. The US is the biggest consumer of plastic, no matter who produces it. Demand drives production. The south east Asia inherent plastic problem you are talking is the industrial form. In contrast no one across industrial sector and regular consumers , across the spectrum, uses plastic like Americans.
5
@Alok
Excuse me. I meant to say "production equals consumption."
The argument is very circular. US demand drives Chinese plastic production. Chinese plastic production drive US plastic consumption.
If the price of plastic reflected the inverse market, waste consumption, everyone would consume much less plastic. The price of Chinese shopping bags only reflects the cost of creating the bag, not its disposal.
Essentially, the global market for price for plastic is too low. China at 26% market share plays a large role in perpetuating this situation.
@Alok
Right, right. Production you're missing the point though. You're missing the point though.
If China doesn't want to import plastic waste, they shouldn't produce plastic material. The US would have to source their plastic elsewhere which would almost certainly increase the cost of consuming any given amount of plastic. At a higher price, quantity demanded is lower. Hence, less plastic waste.
Recycling, reduced emission vehicles, sun and wind power generation . . all attacks on symptoms while the disease rages on unchecked.
The human population is now at 7.7 billion, and growing at 82 million a year. No amount of conservation or "clean living" by the existing billions can compensate for that annual increase, never mind the additional damage by those already here.
Our population passed its tipping point -- the point in a process beyond which it cannot be halted -- half a century ago. If you had more than two children: You created the problem.
Mankind -- and the Earth's ecology -- are irrecoverably doomed.
I recycle nothing. But I had no children. Deliberately.
Done my part. Et vous?
13
I had 2 children. I recycle everything I can.
3
Buy brown paper bags with handles instead of plastic. When at the supermarket just use the trolley and tell the check out operator to put the groceries into the trolley as you're saving dolphins. Or put them in the trolley yourself once gone through the till.
It will be there loss long term as nations are getting innovative with their plastic waste.
Do a web search: plastic pottles used for tarsealing road nz
2
@CK. Recycling paper bags, while better than putting them in a landfill, still uses a very substantial amount of energy and water. Far better to use a cloth bag, or none at all.
5
@David Or compost it.
1
@CK I suspect most New Yorkers reuse their plastic bags at least once, mostly for holding garbage. You cannot walk down the hall to the compactor holding it in your hands. I have also wondered what really happens to paper placed in recycling bins in NYC. With the collapse of the scrap paper market, it might just quietly find its way to the landfill.
2
What a sad comment on our culture that we are willing to let other, poorer nations deal with our trash rather than make some serious adjustments to our way of life. I think it’s time for a good look at our wastefulness, it’s been much too easy to assuage consciences by believing we can continue to generate waste as we have because, hey, “ I always recycle it!” ( Quoting my brother on his bottled water consumption).
31
I exported millions of pounds of scrap material to China over the years, their buyers always paying the right price and accepting all types of materials. The main material I sent overseas was computer breakage and main frames, aluminum and copper scrap, the Chinese were after the precious metals as well as the base materials and plastics that were used to construct the equipment.
Thirty years ago the Chinese were just clawing their way out of the stone age imposed on them by Mao and his crazy wife, it was known as the " Great Leap Forward ", they were attempting to enter the twentieth century at that time, all things considered they have done a good job.
They needed the commodities at the time as refining metals from ore is expensive. So they bought everything, hard calculating buyers, but, they took it all. Now that China is attempting to stop using scrap with pollution and byproducts the trash will migrate. The shrewd Chinese business men chased from the mainland set up backyard quicky businesses that once they have made a buck they abandoned the trash.
Often they are paid to remove the trash and then paid again once the material is sold, if the markets change and they can't sell the material they only get paid once and abandon the residue .
7
@Tom ,Retired Florida Junkman
I was going to note or complain about: "Within months, Malaysia, which has a sizable ethnic Chinese population, had replaced China as the world’s largest importer of plastic scrap."
What does the ethnic make-up of Malaysia to do with it?
Is the implication that "The shrewd Chinese business men chased from the mainland set up backyard quicky businesses" are the ethnic connection?
3
Why should these countries be burdened with our waste. If it can be used, we should be the ones using it!
2
It will be their loss long term, as they could've tarsealed their roads with all those recyclables. And there's other uses that other nations, such as Europe and England, are being innovative with recycling plastic waste.
Those Asian nations have missed a great opportunity to turn that waste in bitumen etc and sell it back to us. lol!
Do a web search of these words: plastic pottles used for tarsealing road nz
3
The US is completely unprepared for this looming public policy disaster and politicians have their heads in the sand. We need better public infrastructure, regulation, and civic engagement to solve this problem. This should be a bipartisan issue! Look at what Taiwan did to reduce their waste levels. We can and must do the same.
9
Plastic recycling is a hoax. The percentage of plastic that is actually "recycled" (itself a misnomer: plastic can only be "down-cycled") is insignificant because it is more expensive than making new plastic. Aluminum, glass, and paper/cardboard are the only practically viable recycling materials.
13
@Kevin Add steel and iron to your list of viable recyclable materials- most recyclable thing in the world! The more times it goes through the refinement process the more impurities come out, so recycled steel is actually of higher quality.
3
We often forget that recycling is the last option we should use after reduce and reuse. Human beings simply produce way too much waste, and we value convenience over what's good for nature. We should be moving away from all plastics but there are plenty of people who simply don't want to pay more for better, more sustainable alternatives or don't want to be inconvenienced. Look at how few states have banned plastic bags from grocery stores.
Recycling is not the solution, it should be a last resort. We need to reduce overall consumption and we should spend more money to have reusable alternatives.
18
I agree, we must stop producing massive amounts of single use plastic packaging. However, there are mountains of it existing around the world right now; could this somehow be compressed or melted into solid blocks that could be used underground to raise the (future) sea level of islands at risk from global warming-induced sea level rises? I am no expert in this field and would appreciate feedback from those who are.
3
This is a major problem. Near the top of my personal, non-scientific, list of those at fault are people who drink bottled water from one-time-use bottles. But I digress.
We can do better with more intelligent, and therefore more expensive, recycling. A big problem with today's recycling is that most people don't properly separate non-recyclable from recyclable waste. This contaminates a lot of material meant to be recycled, and it ends up in landfills are barges to Asia.
Over the long term, I think we may have to implement a system wherein the cost of products includes a tax to fund their eventual disposal. This is going to be expensive and an administrative nightmare, and the last thing the world needs is another bureaucracy. But, we may have no choice.
10
“Everybody knows those dumps are illegal,” said Modh Faiz Tamsir, a butcher hawking fly-covered beef in a parking lot on Telok Gong’s main drag. “We don’t like them.”
Why was this detail necessary? Because it reads as if the journalist is questioning the legitimacy of this man’s activity and his critique of the excess of western filth in his country. “Hawking” and “fly-covered”—really?
14
Any effort to recycle stuff will be thwarted because "recycling" not profitable. Advance disposal fees, such as those on lead acid batteries and tires must be considered to offset the costs of disposal. These fees need to consider the cost of reprocessing, and the difficulty in disposing stuff. For example, if a wide screen television has a warranty for 3 years, an advance disposal fee would provide sufficient funds for its disposal. I paid $25 to get rid of my screen through Best Buy. Disposal fees should be included in the price of everything we buy. Only then might it be profitable to consider reusing, rather than "recycling".
12
@Bob
we pay recycling fee in CA already..from tires to electronics
1
Perhaps the most prescient if not remembered scene in "Mad Men" was the Draper family packing up after a family picnic, circa 1962(?). The "disposable" plates, utensils, napkins and food waste were all left in a quick flourish as Betty shook out the blanket, one of the few things she retained for the trip home.
We were sold comfortable, modern living based on an illusion. Sold by people like Don Draper. It's only gotten much worse. It is not sustainable.
15
@Pedro G. I remember that scene well, it was certainly jarring. I take hope, however, in the fact that, through education, people’s minds were changed regarding litter. I remember in particular the TV ad when I was a kid with a Native American watching litter being thrown from a car and a tear rolling down his face. Most of us wouldn’t dream of that trashy ( in every sense of the word) behavior now. The same can be done regarding our production of waste, I believe.
2
America first ==> China first ==> Malaysia first ==> Philippines first...
Now we're all winners!
7
How many of us (especially in the Northeast) are paying a deposit on each plastic water bottle purchased? This was done to encourage recycling. Was that as far as the plan went - collecting nickles?
8
Wyoming has some big holes in the ground. So does Montana. They'd take a while to fill up with unwanted plastic. It would be carbon sequestration.
11
See, there you go!
I live in Germany. Germany is very environmentally conscious! Wr separate our garage at home and plastic goes into the recycling bin right in front of our houses! Plastic bags are gone from grocery stores. We make solar. We make wind power. We separate glass by color too! I’m so-o-o proud of us!...and, apparently, we sell our recycling collections overseas to avoid environmental issues at home! Just in time for swimsuit season we can watch our plastic make its way back home via floating in the ocean.
What a joke! Forget about Trump! We’re the good guys and we suck at it!
34
Why should other, poorer countries be forced to accept the mountains of trash we and other rich countries produce? We should be handling our own trash instead of dumping it in someone else’s backyard. If it results in higher costs or more pollution in our country, then we really shouldn’t be producing so much waste in the first place, and we should rethink our culture of disposables, single-use plastics, and wasteful over-packaging in everything.
79
@Jeffrey
They were not forced. They are paid, and chose income over environmental quality. Voluntarily.
18
@Jeffrey
Forced? Who is forcing them?
7
Seems like an opportune time for someone to develop a domestic recycling industry. Good ol' American know-how!
23
Some of the recyclers should unload this on the White House lawn and in front of every Trump branded property, when they are received back from the foreign countries that we’ve tarifes ourselves into this situation in.
9
How about every cent regained by the deposit should fund the green new deal
1
We just create too much trash. All-kinds.
Twice/ week, we put out garbage, and I am amazed how most neighbors have their dumpsters overfilling with garbage almost every time.
How is producing this much trash even possible?
7
@MS
You get garbage service twice a week!? Nice.
They only pick up here on Weds so we started recycling not because we're into that but because we were running out of space in our one garbage can. That's helped a lot, but I honestly don't think we're doing it right. Having one can and one pick up per week has forced us to watch what we throw away though.
Our trash in Portland is collected every two weeks. The trash bin is smaller than the recycling and smaller than the yard waste/compost. It takes some getting used to. You find yourself choosing less packaged options and soon it becomes habit. Christmas is hard. And when my in laws come, I find myself setting aside less critical trash to throw away later, because they think nothing of takeaway food and all the containers that come with it. I'm not saying Portland is perfect. But having no where to put your waste forces you to create less of it. Perhaps this is what is needed on a large scale.
6
This story is proof we need to move away from single use plastic. And companies who use any plastic that is either not recyclable or does not have a viable market after use should be heavily fined.
Humans survived without plastic for thousands of years. The future of our planet, and the present health of marine life, depend on ending the proliferation of plastic.
51
Isn't there anyway recycled plastic can be processed in the U.S?
20
@Steve
Probably, at a cost no American would be willing to pay
7
@Guy
Or, looked at from a different angle. At a cost the producer is not satisfied eating.
I can do without Coke, and crank frankly many other things others appeared to need.
2
The West and the US should pay to recycle their own trash at home.
I am willing to pay higher taxes for that and I'm also ready to see manufacturers fined for unnecessary plastic packaging. There are so many instances where cardboard would be just fine.
Oh, and start with Starbucks, and other big food chains which generate so much trash. Our family has stopped buying take out food for that reason.
60
If you don’t grow your own food, you are still contributing to garbage creation on a massive scale. Just spend some time in the loading docks of any grocery store. It’s the larger scale that we have to approach and fight back on as well. Simply stopping buying a bottle of coke or a sandwich to go will not change the fact that we are all dependent on transported and imported goods we do not produce for ourselves.
3
@Wayne
We grow our food on farms precisely because it is more efficient and less wasteful to have fewer large farms than many tiny ones.
@Eric - The Starbucks cups, at least here, go into the Yard Waste Bin and then go to the city to get composted and put back into the parks. And our city recently banned plastic straws.
1
For many years there was a local women’s club that sponsored recycling centers in the area we lived in. In the last month, they all abruptly closed.
One import Asia no longer wants from the US is our waste. This article does not explicitly say it, but is this a subtle message from China to Mr Trump? If so, he will be the last one in this country to get it despite his very high IQ.
9
@Jane K I hadn't made that connection, but you're right: this started in 2017--right when Trump did.
2
the tone of this report seems to worry more about the possibility of some honest recycler in southeast Asia losing access to high quality recylables than the much larger problem of massive amounts of contaminated recycling and garbage being dumped there. The west needs Asia to ban import of this stuff for a while so our recyclers work on ensuring their materials are properly sorted and our government and industry work on reducing waste, packaging, single-use plastics and more.
44
@Barry Schiller
Yeah, we need Asia to solve our problems for us.
Ban PLASTIC! Motivate the smart youngsters to invent a replacement product that is durable yet biodegradable. Remake that scene in "The Graduate" with a speech urging that the future is in finding a replacement material.
If possible, someone might engineer a process for turning this petroleum-based product into some sort of non-polluting fuel. It probably cannot be done, but maybe it's worth a try.
It has been obvious for over 25 years that we cannot keep filling the earth and its oceans with this mess. Shipping our non-recyclables overseas just kicks the can down the road. We all live here on the planet, and those who generated the mess should be the first to clean it up.
37
The responsibility of recycling this plastic waste should be on the companies who produce it. When collected it should be shipped back to Coca-Cola and all of the other conglomerates promoting single use plastics.
98
@CMurock I can remember when coke came in glass bottles worth 2 cents on return. And I didn't see coke bottles all over the place like we see plastic water bottles.
48
@CMurock
Yes, I agree if you make the companies responsible for recycling it, you'll see them jumping to come up with better alternatives. However, let's not let the consumer off the hook; we all need to be more thoughtful about the garbage we create.
23
@CMurock
Agree. It's just another example where our "free market" misses the ultimate cost of a product. The cost of a bottle of water should include the cost to recycle the packaging. The cost of energy should include the cost of damaging the environment. Just a couple examples where the rich are subsidised by our "free market" system.
14