On this episode of China Uncensored,
China’s garbage ban stinks!
And we’re back.
The Chinese Communist Party has come up
with a brilliant solution to its pollution problem—
blame it on the foreigners!
Pollution is one of the few problems
the Chinese regime can’t ignore.
Because it’s really easy to see.
T
hat is if you can see anything.
So after decades of rapid industrialization
and economic growth at any cost,
the Chinese regime is doing what it does best—
cracking down on things.
In this case, pollution.
But the Party is also doing
the other thing it does best—
shifting the blame.
China is banning foreign garbage.
“Foreign garbage is loathed by everyone,”
as one Chinese environment minister put it.
In this notification to the World Trade Organization,
the Chinese regime announced it would ban
the import of 24 kinds of solid waste.
That includes things like paper,
as well as, “tires, textiles, plastic, and glass,
and it will limit the importation of other waste
such as steel, copper and aluminum scrap.”
China is also banning other types of waste,
like Jersey Shore DVDs.
The reason?
Protection of human health or safety;
Protection of animal or plant life or health;
and Protection of the environment.
Now you might be asking yourself,
China imports foreign garbage?
I mean,
I know the US imports a lot of Chinese garbage.
But who imports actual garbage?
Well, you may not know this,
but garbage is big business.
You may see a pile of trash,
but I see gold!
Gold!
You hear me?!
Recycling other people’s garbage
is a global industry worth billions.
And China is a huge part of it.
In 2016,
China imported 45 million tonnes of scrap metal,
waste paper and plastic,
together worth over 18 billion dollars.
And it’s the United States
that’s sending China most of its garbage.
According to the Solid Waste Association of North America—
yes that’s a thing—
“China is the largest export market
for recyclables generated in the United States.
They import about 13 million tons of paper
and nearly 800,000 tons of plastic
from the United States annually.”
And really it creates this circle of life thing.
China makes a lot of cheap goods.
They’re packed into cardboard boxes,
and sent to the United States,
where they’re briefly,
and then thrown away.
And all that waste ultimately makes a trip
back to where it started—
China—to be recycled.
It’s beautiful.
But the benefits of recycling the world’s garbage
went way beyond money.
30 years of China's manufacturing boom
was fueled by garbage,
garbage the Chinese regime encouraged the world
to give to China.
Take copper for instance.
It’s essential to modern living.
You can’t transmit power or information without it.
But why mine your own copper
when the rest of the world is throwing theirs away?
According to the book, Junkyard Planet,
in 2012,
almost half of China’s copper
was made from recycled scrap.
And 70% of that scrap
came from the United States.
Same goes for plastic and paper.
It’s cheaper, quicker,
and easier to recycle plastic and paper
than it is to drill oil wells or cut down trees.
And it’s a huge energy save on top of that.
According to Bloomberg,
“Recycling 1 ton of paper saves enough energy
to power the average American home
for six months,
while using recycled material to produce plastic
reduces the energy required
by as much as 87 percent.”
So since China has benefitted so much
from recycling the world’s garbage,
why the ban?
It’s a convenient scapegoat.
Rather than dealing with
the root causes of pollution—
which are numerous and complex—
the Chinese regime can blame
the problem on foreigners,
and point to the ban as a tangible step
toward solving the problem.
The reality is,
most of China’s pollution problem
comes from internal factors.
While recycling foreign garbage
has created a booming industry,
it’s not always run in the safest
or most sanitary way,
China’s own recycling system is a mess.
According to the World Bank,
in eight years China will be throwing away
1.4 million tons of garbage a day.
Twice as much as the United States.
Half of that will be burned.
And according to an in-depth report by NPR,
“they’re burning garbage the cheapest way possible,
filling China’s skies with an unknown amount
of cancer-causing heavy metal and dioxin emissions.”
Rather than solving the environmental problems,
“this crackdown will actually worsen them —
and do so at the expense of jobs
and economic growth around the world.”
According to this study,
40,000 American jobs relied on
the garbage and recycling industry.
And in China,
that number is multiples larger.
The Chinese ban on foreign garbage,
while giving the Communist Party
something to boast about,
actually hurts Chinese people,
and doesn’t really do much
to protect the environment.
In the meantime,
what happens to all that garbage?
Well, right now,
it’s piling up in Hong Kong.
Eventually, other southeast Asian countries
will be able to take some of it
to give their economies
the boost it did for China.
But most of the garbage
will end up in landfills.
Or the ocean.
So what do you think of China’s garbage ban?
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.
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