Recycling
Going around the Green Wall of China If you think segregating household scraps in colour-coded bins is enough to give breathing space to the environment’s congested landfills, think again. The plastic scraps travel a long and tedious journey from the source to the recyclers. And to complicate things further, the scraps are now labelled, graded (low or high) and politicised, says Angelica Buan in this report.
Experts view China's Green Fence Operation as a greater opportunity for legitimate recyclers, domestic growth and less waste generated
26
AUGUST 2013
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orting plastics waste is not the end all and be all in saving Mother Earth and ultimately, in a breeze attempt to cork that gaping hole in the ozone layer. Keeping the increasing tonnage of plastic waste at bay requires sound infrastructure and facilities to recycle more than what would end up in landfills or clog the drains. Too many countries, from the emerging to matured economies, are faced with deficient solid waste management practices, even on a municipal level. On a global scale, the plastic waste route from source to recyclers is bottlenecked. For instance, China has put up a “green fence” to keep out “low grade” post consumer plastics from countries like the US and UK. Keeping the lid on in China China’s Operation Green Fence (OGF), launched in February this year, requires that import/export of wastes are checked for quality, public and environment safety. Authorities may also bar noncompliant low grade waste from entering the country, especially waste that is unlawfully imported. The policy also ensures parallel monitoring of landfills and locally generated waste and contaminated materials (coming from local waste collectors and recycling facilities that mix plastics with other materials in one container, and henceforth contaminate the bales). China is inundated with its own post-consumer waste, hence it refuses to open its gates wider to more trash. It is also mulling over refusing unwashed plastic scraps. In Hong Kong, some 843,000 tonnes of plastic waste was collected in 2011; 99.5% of this was exported to China and Vietnam for recycling. This was stated in a Hong Kong waste reduction report, which also spelt out factors that constrain plastic waste recovery, such as comparably high land and labour costs, lack of financial incentives to reduce waste and space limitations. The report said that contaminated plastic waste, when co-mingled with household waste, results in a higher cost of cleaning and lowers the market value. China has created a strong domestic recycling infrastructure to support its spiralling demand, creating a worldwide network of brokers constantly seeking scrap and waste streams to sell to Chinese processors. The country, thus, has become a major destination for the world’s plastic scraps from the US, Japan, Germany, and the UK. For instance, the UK ships around 100 containers/ day of recovered plastics to China, according to the British Plastics Federation (BPF), which is promoting the use of recycled plastics in domestic manufacturing. London-based information provider CBI China anticipates recovered plastic demand in China to surge to 29 million tonnes by 2015. China’s five-year plan inculcates that the country’s environmental protection sector, focusing on recycling and energy-saving, should be given serious attention. According to the UK-based Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)’s 2011 market report, China’s packaging sector accounts for more than 40% of the recovered plastics demand that is channelled to making PET bottles and bags (PP, rPET, rPE). This was followed by the construction sector, which drives 20% demand for 70%-recycled content of rPVC, PE, rPP in pipes; and rEPS/rPS boards. Newer applications have emerged such as wood-plastic and aluminum composites, which contain recycled tPE and rPP.