Why China Stopped Buying U.S. Recycling

In 2018, China banned the import of most of the world's recycling. Now, Chinese companies are investing in recycling facilities in the U.S.

Chinese paper companies are opening offices in the U.S. in an attempt to gather and export recycled pulp, instead of the raw recyclable materials. The trend comes after China implemented a series of new policies prohibiting the import of scrap recyclable materials in 2018 that is having huge repercussions on the global recycling market.

“It was an aphorism in the recycling industry that China had the most stringent environmental laws in place. They just didn’t enforce them. Well, that changed beginning in 2013, with a Customs Enforcement action called Operation Green Fence,” Dylan de Thomas, vice president of industry collaboration at the Recycling Partnership, told CNBC.

Laws regarding specific environmental regulations were passed in 2006 and 2010, and the country officially began a crackdown in February 2013. Recovered plastic shipments to China dropped about 99% from 2017 to 2018, according to Resource Recycling.

After a public awareness campaign and outcry from Chinese citizens — ignited in some cases by the documentary “Plastic China” — the country implemented a series of policies called Green Fence, National Sword and Blue Sky to stop curbside pickup from ending up in unmanageable quantities in China.

However, recyclable scrap materials were still being collected, so the industry started to adapt.

“Changes in Chinese policies have really focused energy and attention — and I’m also glad to say innovation — on the topic of recycling,” Peter Wright, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, told CNBC.

American companies, like Waste Management, have been investing in upgrading domestic sorting facilities. Chinese companies have been buying up old paper mills in the U.S. to produce enough scrap material to support China’s manufacturing output.

Paper giant ND Paper, owned by Chinese corporation Nine Dragons Paper, recently opened mills in Maine, Wisconsin and West Virginia. While their operations combine virgin and recycled goods, their Fairmont, West Virginia mill has the capacity for 240,000 tons of recycled pulp, according to ND Paper.

Watch the video to find out how the recycling industry is adapting to massive changes in Chinese policy.


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Why China Stopped Buying U.S. Recycling

[p]

We as Americans should clean up our own mess.

[RossCampoli]

Everybody’s recycling rules changed about a year or two ago. It’s fascinating to think that practically all the plastic recycling in the US went to China.

[DanBurgaud]

TO get rid of garbage:
1. Preach recycling: it is good for the environment and how one can make money.
2. Introduce recycling to a poor country and set them up with recycling facilities.
3. Start sending your garbage to them.
4. Once they wised up, there is always another poor country.
"HELLO MALAYSIA! Let me teach you about recycling."
rinse repeat!

[MasterPlace-gstf]

Well no crap, I wouldn’t want to buy someone’s trash..

[christianguzman]

China investing in the U.S. Manufacturing and Processing is the biggest irony of this century.

[DistractedDaisy]

Title should be "Why The U.S. Stopped DUMPING Recycled Goods IN China

[h.h]

I truely appreciate every person willing to protect our planet! This is a long journey for human beings.

[OMEGATRON]

The first mistake was outsourcing jobs ....no need to go further

[AbelRamirezII]

1:23 Why can't we have American owned businesses and companies filling this recycling center void instead of China owned companies here in the U.S.???

[beaudavis]

In truth, we should not be sending our recycled materials to overseas. We should be handling them ourselves.

[Xerge]

Just standardize trash so it's easier to recycle.

[chiyerano]

Thanks for this info. I have often wondered about what exactly is done with recycling and the issues around it.

[SouthernBelleReviews]

I like how the tile changed from How China Is Creating More Green to Why China Stopped Buying US Recycling.... 🤔 Why the drastic title change, huh??? Sketchy!!

[RandyLy]

I had a feeling that it would affect America just for a short while. Yes, China's policy was strict, but knowing American entrepreneurship and human ingenuity; we can adapt to any situation.
And also, don't get me wrong, recycling is good. But we have to shift our focus on lessening the number of recyclable goods. Remember, it's Reduce, Reuse, and lastly Recycle. People focus so much on Recycling that they forget the first two steps.

[The_General_Zubas]

3:40 good, good.

we needed this. i should look into this document.

[GURken]

please can somebody tell how a skyscraper at 5:21 is called?

[andraslibal]

0:08 "That makes sense" no it does not we ship plastic crap half around the world and then ship back the packaging again half around the world. What would make sense is to make things in the US consume them in the US and then use the collected packaging inside the US (for example, gasify and burn them for energy). Denmark and Sweden have already perfected it, plastic is a very good high energy content fuel and if you burn it after gasification it burns completely and all you get is clean CO2 (and water).

[Predestinated]

MSNBC changed the title from "How China creates jobs in the US" to this 😂😂😂

[DOKOTV]

They forgot to mention the world is going paperless and also working towards no single use plastic for a safer world for our future generations.

[Phlegethon]

In China you can actually implement change. Let’s just debate more in the US while the world burns