WEBVTT - How Can We Recycle More, and Smarter? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.119 Lauren Vogel bomb here. For years, China has been the 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.840 top importer of recyclable material taking in about half of 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.720 the world's plastics and paper and turning the rubbish into 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.320 useful materials, so it was quite a shock. In seventeen 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.200 Wendy Chinese government announced it was changing its rules on 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.840 the importation of waste. Instead of accepting bales of recycled 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.040 materials with five percent impurities, as had been the norm, 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.800 China said it would only accept bales containing less than 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.960 one percent, a nearly impossible standard to meet in the 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.919 short term. When the Chinese announced the change, no one 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.800 was exactly sure how it would play out, but now 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.720 they know. As the new rule took effect in January eighteen, 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.440 many countries, including the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.400 and Germany, began to scramble to find ways to dispose 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.000 of their recyclables that just months ago would have gone 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.640 to China. As a consequence, tons of inventory began piling 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.480 up on docks in manicip landfills and in processing facilities. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.839 In Halifax, Nova Scotia, for example, the city needed special 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.640 permission to bury three thirty tons. That's three metric tons 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.680 of plastic in the local landfill, and just for the 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.200 sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer just to tons 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.200 for the rest of this piece. Apologies, metric users. Just 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.440 keep in mind that our tons are a wee bit heavier, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.440 and feel free to insert your own joke about Americans 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.640 and heaviness here anyway. Adina Renee Rattlers, Senior director of 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.199 International Relations and international Affairs for the Institute of Scrap 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.520 Recycling Industries, says China didn't give the world a whole 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.080 lot of time to get ready for this. The rules 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.680 changing compasses twenty four categories of solid waste, including certain plastics, paper, 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:46.080 and textiles. The problem, Chinese officials claim, though others dispute this, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.400 is that large amounts of contaminated material were being mixed 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.200 in with the recyclables that the country was accepting. The 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.520 officials also said that much of what they were taking 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.680 in was not properly scrubbed and sorted. They wrote to 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.760 the World Trade Organization when announcing the move. Large amounts 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.400 of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.200 with the solid waste that can be used as raw materials. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.560 This polluted China's environment seriously. Since the nineteen eighties, China 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.560 has been the world's largest importer of solid waste, using 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.120 these recyclables to power its manufacturing industry and to fuel 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.040 its burgeoning economy. As Chinese industry grew more robust, the 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.120 country also became one of the world's most polluted, forcing 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.200 the government to take steps to protect the environment. Adler 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.720 says they do have a tremendous environmental problem on their hands. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.440 One of the government's directives has been to better manage 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.760 waste domestically and do it quickly. They gave us practically 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.760 no time for any kind of transition. Regardless, China's crackdown 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.400 has provoked a soul searching moment as the rest of 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.760 the planet tries to find both near term and long 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.520 term solutions. For years, the world's nations relied on China 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.320 to take in its unwanted refuse. In for example, China 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.680 bought almost fifty million tons of trash, while the European 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.240 Union in sent eight percent of its sorted plastic to 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.120 the Asian giant Ireland of its plastic waste, and the 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.680 United States sixteen million tons of recycled scrap. In sixteen, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.520 China processed seven point three million tons of paper, metals 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.160 and used plastic. Now that China has essentially closed its doors, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.240 there are those who say its actions should be a 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.560 wake up call because there's simply no more room at 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.760 the local landfill or incinerator plant. Consider these numbers. Every 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.640 American will send about sixty four tons of waste to 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.639 a landfill over the course of his or her life. Moreover, 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.400 the average American throws away four point three pounds that's 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.280 one point nine kilograms of trash every day. Americans as 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.360 a whole toss out eleven million tons of glass each year. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.920 All that glass weighs as much as four hundred and 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:47.240 forty Titanics or thirty Empire State buildings. According to the 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.440 US Environmental Protection Agency, Americans recycle or compost only a 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.840 third of the solid waste stream. The world produces more 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.280 than three hundred million tons of plastic each year. The 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.920 World Economic Forum says that by any fifty there will 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:02.880 be so much plastic floating in the ocean it will 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.880 outweigh all of the world's fish. So what's the solution. 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.240 Simon Ellen, chief executive of Britain's Recycling Association told The 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.960 New York Times, we've got to start producing less and 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.200 we've got to produce better quality recyclable goods. Consider the 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.120 example San Francisco has set for the rest of the planet. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.279 That city is one of the most recyclable friendly communities 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.480 in the world. It's so called zero Waste initiative, one 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.160 of the most muscular in the nation, is designed not 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.960 to send any trash to the landfill or incinerator, but 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.479 rather to increase the rate of recycling and composting. In 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:38.680 two thousand two, the city set a goal to be 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:43.120 zero waste by To that end, Recollogy San Francisco, the 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.520 employee owned firm that runs San Francisco's recycling program along 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.479 with the city, has developed many programs to produce better 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:54.599 quality recyclables while drastically reducing the amount of trash people toss. Together. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.240 Recollogy and San Francisco instituted one of the first programs 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.760 that picks upcome postable material at the curb. People simply 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.279 put compost into green bins so it doesn't co mingle 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.960 and contaminate other recyclables. Robert Reid, spokesman for Ecology, set 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.760 in an email. The goal of these zero waste initiative 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.680 encourages San Franciscans to reduce waste, reuse materials, and be 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.640 more attentive to recycling and composting. Last November, we reached 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.040 the milestone of composting two million tons. We diverted all 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.320 that material from landfill disposal and instead turned it into 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.039 nutrient rich compost that's applied to local farms and vineyards. 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.960 Recycling is good for the economy too, he continued. We 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.000 created more than two hundred new jobs permanent local jobs 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.920 in San Francisco in ten years while expanding the city's 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:43.640 recycling program. Each day, the world's population generates nearly three 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.960 point five million tons of garbage, ten times the amount 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.520 from a century ago in and that number is expected 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:52.599 to grow to eleven million tons by the end of 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.520 the twenty first century. But there is a glimmer of hope. 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.800 The zero waste movement is strong in many communities. The 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.200 best way out of the trash and we've created, it seems, 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:10.000 is to recycle and recycle smartly. Today's episode was written 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.159 by John Paritano and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.960 on this and lots of other environmental topics, visit our 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:29.440 home planet, how stuff works dot com.