Tag Archives: China’s National Sword

Taking A Look at China After the National Sword

For nearly three decades, the U.S. has been shipping their recyclables to China. It was a mutually beneficial relationship born from the U.S.’s overproduction of single use plastics and China’s need for raw materials. (more…)
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Exporting Pollution and Smuggling Scrap

A two-week investigation of Malaysian imports revealed that U.S. shipments of scrap plastic may be getting into the country despite rigid import regulations designed to keep them out. (more…)
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Reduce, Reuse, and Incinerate?

For the past few months, half of dutifully collected, rinsed, and sorted recyclables have not been recycled into new products as intended, but instead sent to incinerators and landfills. Well-meaning citizens of American cities continue to recycle with hopes that it will help the health of the planet and public, unaware that recyclables may actually…
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China Eases Contamination Thresholds…Slightly

  Though Chinese import restrictions have targeted all materials, scrap paper received a disproportionate blow as Jinping’s government officials planned to reduce the acceptable level of contamination for recycled paper loads to 0.3 percent, intending to fully implement the changes by the end of 2018. For reference, the current standards demand scrap paper imports have…
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