Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. For years, China has been the
Speaker 1: top importer of recyclable material taking in about half of
Speaker 1: the world's plastics and paper and turning the rubbish into
Speaker 1: useful materials, so it was quite a shock. In seventeen
Speaker 1: Wendy Chinese government announced it was changing its rules on
Speaker 1: the importation of waste. Instead of accepting bales of recycled
Speaker 1: materials with five percent impurities, as had been the norm,
Speaker 1: China said it would only accept bales containing less than
Speaker 1: one percent, a nearly impossible standard to meet in the
Speaker 1: short term. When the Chinese announced the change, no one
Speaker 1: was exactly sure how it would play out, but now
Speaker 1: they know. As the new rule took effect in January eighteen,
Speaker 1: many countries, including the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain
Speaker 1: and Germany, began to scramble to find ways to dispose
Speaker 1: of their recyclables that just months ago would have gone
Speaker 1: to China. As a consequence, tons of inventory began piling
Speaker 1: up on docks in manicip landfills and in processing facilities.
Speaker 1: In Halifax, Nova Scotia, for example, the city needed special
Speaker 1: permission to bury three thirty tons. That's three metric tons
Speaker 1: of plastic in the local landfill, and just for the
Speaker 1: sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer just to tons
Speaker 1: for the rest of this piece. Apologies, metric users. Just
Speaker 1: keep in mind that our tons are a wee bit heavier,
Speaker 1: and feel free to insert your own joke about Americans
Speaker 1: and heaviness here anyway. Adina Renee Rattlers, Senior director of
Speaker 1: International Relations and international Affairs for the Institute of Scrap
Speaker 1: Recycling Industries, says China didn't give the world a whole
Speaker 1: lot of time to get ready for this. The rules
Speaker 1: changing compasses twenty four categories of solid waste, including certain plastics, paper,
Speaker 1: and textiles. The problem, Chinese officials claim, though others dispute this,
Speaker 1: is that large amounts of contaminated material were being mixed
Speaker 1: in with the recyclables that the country was accepting. The
Speaker 1: officials also said that much of what they were taking
Speaker 1: in was not properly scrubbed and sorted. They wrote to
Speaker 1: the World Trade Organization when announcing the move. Large amounts
Speaker 1: of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in
Speaker 1: with the solid waste that can be used as raw materials.
Speaker 1: This polluted China's environment seriously. Since the nineteen eighties, China
Speaker 1: has been the world's largest importer of solid waste, using
Speaker 1: these recyclables to power its manufacturing industry and to fuel
Speaker 1: its burgeoning economy. As Chinese industry grew more robust, the
Speaker 1: country also became one of the world's most polluted, forcing
Speaker 1: the government to take steps to protect the environment. Adler
Speaker 1: says they do have a tremendous environmental problem on their hands.
Speaker 1: One of the government's directives has been to better manage
Speaker 1: waste domestically and do it quickly. They gave us practically
Speaker 1: no time for any kind of transition. Regardless, China's crackdown
Speaker 1: has provoked a soul searching moment as the rest of
Speaker 1: the planet tries to find both near term and long
Speaker 1: term solutions. For years, the world's nations relied on China
Speaker 1: to take in its unwanted refuse. In for example, China
Speaker 1: bought almost fifty million tons of trash, while the European
Speaker 1: Union in sent eight percent of its sorted plastic to
Speaker 1: the Asian giant Ireland of its plastic waste, and the
Speaker 1: United States sixteen million tons of recycled scrap. In sixteen,
Speaker 1: China processed seven point three million tons of paper, metals
Speaker 1: and used plastic. Now that China has essentially closed its doors,
Speaker 1: there are those who say its actions should be a
Speaker 1: wake up call because there's simply no more room at
Speaker 1: the local landfill or incinerator plant. Consider these numbers. Every
Speaker 1: American will send about sixty four tons of waste to
Speaker 1: a landfill over the course of his or her life. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the average American throws away four point three pounds that's
Speaker 1: one point nine kilograms of trash every day. Americans as
Speaker 1: a whole toss out eleven million tons of glass each year.
Speaker 1: All that glass weighs as much as four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty Titanics or thirty Empire State buildings. According to the
Speaker 1: US Environmental Protection Agency, Americans recycle or compost only a
Speaker 1: third of the solid waste stream. The world produces more
Speaker 1: than three hundred million tons of plastic each year. The
Speaker 1: World Economic Forum says that by any fifty there will
Speaker 1: be so much plastic floating in the ocean it will
Speaker 1: outweigh all of the world's fish. So what's the solution.
Speaker 1: Simon Ellen, chief executive of Britain's Recycling Association told The
Speaker 1: New York Times, we've got to start producing less and
Speaker 1: we've got to produce better quality recyclable goods. Consider the
Speaker 1: example San Francisco has set for the rest of the planet.
Speaker 1: That city is one of the most recyclable friendly communities
Speaker 1: in the world. It's so called zero Waste initiative, one
Speaker 1: of the most muscular in the nation, is designed not
Speaker 1: to send any trash to the landfill or incinerator, but
Speaker 1: rather to increase the rate of recycling and composting. In
Speaker 1: two thousand two, the city set a goal to be
Speaker 1: zero waste by To that end, Recollogy San Francisco, the
Speaker 1: employee owned firm that runs San Francisco's recycling program along
Speaker 1: with the city, has developed many programs to produce better
Speaker 1: quality recyclables while drastically reducing the amount of trash people toss. Together.
Speaker 1: Recollogy and San Francisco instituted one of the first programs
Speaker 1: that picks upcome postable material at the curb. People simply
Speaker 1: put compost into green bins so it doesn't co mingle
Speaker 1: and contaminate other recyclables. Robert Reid, spokesman for Ecology, set
Speaker 1: in an email. The goal of these zero waste initiative
Speaker 1: encourages San Franciscans to reduce waste, reuse materials, and be
Speaker 1: more attentive to recycling and composting. Last November, we reached
Speaker 1: the milestone of composting two million tons. We diverted all
Speaker 1: that material from landfill disposal and instead turned it into
Speaker 1: nutrient rich compost that's applied to local farms and vineyards.
Speaker 1: Recycling is good for the economy too, he continued. We
Speaker 1: created more than two hundred new jobs permanent local jobs
Speaker 1: in San Francisco in ten years while expanding the city's
Speaker 1: recycling program. Each day, the world's population generates nearly three
Speaker 1: point five million tons of garbage, ten times the amount
Speaker 1: from a century ago in and that number is expected
Speaker 1: to grow to eleven million tons by the end of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. But there is a glimmer of hope.
Speaker 1: The zero waste movement is strong in many communities. The
Speaker 1: best way out of the trash and we've created, it seems,
Speaker 1: is to recycle and recycle smartly. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by John Paritano and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other environmental topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff works dot com.