Tianli Magnet Technology

Bloomberg News published an article on December 31, 2019, saying that forty years ago, the recycling business suddenly became popular, and people regarded it as a great achievement of the environmental movement, which later evolved into a huge global trade. However, nowadays, the cost of environmental protection is being rethinked around the world.

According to the article, in 2017, China upended the global recycling market: it stopped importing most old plastics and waste paper. This has caused the prices of waste plastic products and recycled paper to plummet. In the United States, the average price of waste corrugated board fell by 85% in two years and fell to 28 US dollars per ton in August 2019.

Due to the drop in oil prices, the price of new plastics is lower than that of recycled plastics, so it is difficult to find people who recycle old plastics.

▲Information picture: May 28, 2019, in Port Klang, Malaysia, staff from the Ministry of Energy, Technology, Climate Change and Environment of Malaysia exhibited plastic waste. (Xinhua News Agency)

Although the imports of recycled materials in India and other countries have been increasing, they are far from the previous imports of China. At first, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand increased their imports, but now they also enforce restrictions on imports. Few industrialized countries have the ability to recycle all waste materials on their own. Some communities no longer have houses to store piles of waste materials, so they have stopped collecting plastic, paper or glass products.

According to the article, some parts of the United States, Australia and Canada are sending waste to landfills or simply incinerating them. At the same time, under consumer pressure, several well-known companies have pledged to increase the use of recycled products and biodegradable products.

The article believes that recycling waste is more expensive than throwing away garbage. In 2016, the cost of collecting and processing recycled waste in New York City was $18 per ton higher than the cost of throwing away ordinary garbage.

According to the article, improper recycling will increase costs. As long as there is one Pizza Hut box in a pile of cardboard box waste products, it is possible to destroy the pile of waste products, because the oil in the Pizza Hut box cannot be separated from the paper fibers. Recycling plastic and electronic products can be very dangerous, and recycling workers are at a serious health threat. There are also some natural limitations: paper can only be recycled 5 to 7 times, after which the paper fibers will become too short to be reused; and most transparent plastic bottles can no longer be converted into new bottles.

▲Data picture: On May 22, 2018, customs staff counted the smuggled solid waste seized on the spot. After preliminary verification, the case involved about 200,000 tons of solid waste, and the case value was about 2.2 billion yuan. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yuan Guohong)

However, recycling does save energy. Using recycled aluminum to produce soda cans requires 95% less energy than mining and using raw ore. Recycling also helps prevent toxic materials from entering landfills.

The article said that people began to call for the ban on the use of plastic products and charges; localities began to pass on higher recycling costs to homeowners and businesses. Some regions have announced plans to build new recycling factories, and proposed a public-private partnership, funded by companies that promise to recycle waste products to support low-cost loans. Only some countries have implemented policies to encourage new factories, such as France’s tax exemption system, South Korea’s low-interest loans and Chile’s pilot project funding. Environmentalists still encourage waste recycling, but they also propose other solutions: first, buy less things; second, find durable products.

Reprinted: Polaris Solid Waste Network