China Bans Many Imported Recyclable Materials

 

Last month, China banned imports of some waste materials that can be reused in manufacturing.

The move is forcing other countries to rethink their policies on recycled waste.

Before the ban, China was the first resting place for about half of the world’s metal, plastic and paper recyclables.

Now, the government has decided¹ to ban the import of 24 categories of solid waste. The decision is causing problems for the international waste processing industry.

Developed countries including the United States are trying to deal with ever increasing amounts of unprocessed waste. Now they have to find new places to send it.

Eric Liu is with Greenpeace East Asia. He says that sending the waste to another country is not a good idea.

“This isn’t really a feasible solution,” Liu said. “Very few places are equipped to handle the sheer volume of waste that was being processed in China. Ultimately, the foreign trash ban should act as a ‘wake up’ call to the world. We seriously need to cut down on our production and consumption of plastic,” he added.

Environmentalists like Liu hope that the Chinese move will cause countries to reduce unnecessary waste, like single-use plastic products.

The issue was important enough that British Prime Minister Theresa May discussed it with Chinese President Xi Jinping during her visit to Beijing last week.

May has said that Britain would end all avoidable plastic waste by the year 2042. The goal is part of a 25-year strategy for the environment.

How well is China recycling materials at home?

Experts say the ban on waste is a good step for China, although it may result in a shortage of some raw materials for manufacturing.

Chinese environmentalists hope the ban will bring change to the country’s waste processing industry. They want it to become more modern and effective.

Mao Da is a researcher at Beijing Normal University. He said importing recyclable waste caused the industry to ignore similar materials at home.

“The potential of locally-disposed recyclables has long been overlooked,” he noted².

Making China more environmentally friendly

Mao has urged Chinese environmental officials to enforce policies that require people to recycle and sort solid waste.

But some in the waste processing industry say China already recycles all it can and the ban will have no effect.

Jason Wang is general secretary of the China Scrap³ Plastics Association. He said, “With or without the ban and before 2017, any waste in China that was recyclable and of economic value had been fully⁴ recycled.”

Feng Juan disagrees. She is the research director of Incom Recycle Co., a recycler of plastic bottles in Beijing. Feng said that, if her company had not found ways to get recyclables, it would not have enough waste plastic to meet its processing capacity.

Her company has set up 5,000 vending⁵ machines in Beijing. Incom collected 55 million used bottles from consumers last year.

“Through our platform, we can trace every single bottle we have collected and guarantee its safe [processing] flow,” Feng said.

Possible Restrictions⁶ on Use of Pastics

Eric Liu of Greenpeace estimates that plastic waste from China’s cities has added from 1.3 to 3.35 tons of plastic waste to the world’s oceans.

China’s National Development and Reform commission is reportedly considering a new policy targeting waste. If enacted⁷, the policy would seek to control waste created by e-commerce, delivery services and the food industry.

For years, China has enacted restrictions on the use of plastics, but the rules are not strongly enforced.

I’m Mario Ritter.

Words in This Story

recycle – adj. involving something that can be reformed and reused

categories – n. different kinds of similarly grouped things

consumption – n. the process of using something up

strategy – n. a long-term plan aimed at reaching a goal

raw – adj. undeveloped or unprocessed; not cooked

potential – n. the unrealized possibility of doing something or reaching some goal

capacity – n. the ability to do work

vending – adj. of or related to sales of products or goods

consumer – n. someone who buys and uses up goods

e-commerce – n. online sales and the activities linked to it 

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

3 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

4 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

5 vending   

v.出售（尤指土地等财产）( vend的现在分词 )；（尤指在公共场所）贩卖；发表（意见，言论）；声明

参考例句：

• Why Are You Banging on the Vending Machine? 你为什么敲打这台自动售货机？ 来自朗文快捷英语教程 2
• Coca-Cola had to adapt almost 300,000 vending machines to accept the new coins. 可口可乐公司必须使将近三十万台自动贩卖机接受新货币。 来自超越目标英语 第5册

6 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

7 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹