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Where Has All the Plastic Waste Gone?

China has been a dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste since the 1990s. 

Amy L. Brooks, Shunli Wang and Jenna R. Jambeck, 2018. The Chinese import ban and its impact on global plastic waste trade, Science Advances, Vol. 4, no. 6, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat0131

Source: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaat0131.full

Plastic has become a major commodity on a global scale and has infiltrated almost every aspect of human life. The historic growth in production has outpaced almost all other manufactured materials from 2 million metric tons (MT) produced in 1950 to 322 million MT produced in 2015. A cumulative total of 8.3 billion MT of plastic has been produced as of 2017. Plastic is a very useful material (moldable, durable, light, and inexpensive), and packaging is the most significant sector (40%) of use. Plastic as a material for packaging has had significant advantages, allowing companies to market effectively, design appealing-looking and appealing-feeling packages, prevent loss from store shelves, and transport goods efficiently and economically throughout the world. However, plastic packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco items is often used only once, which has contributed to 61% of global beach litter.

While the use of plastic has expanded quickly, little thought has been given to the impact of this growing use on solid waste management systems, which have had to react to the influx of new and variable materials entering the solid waste stream. Plastic packaging and single-use items enter the waste stream immediately after use, contributing to a cumulative total of 6.3 billion MT of plastic waste generated worldwide . Management of this large increase and quantity of plastic waste has been challenging, particularly in areas of rapid economic development and population growth. Only 9% of plastic waste has been recycled globally, with the overwhelming majority of global plastic waste being landfilled or ending up contaminating the environment (80%), resulting in an estimated 4 million to 12 million MT of waste plastic entering the oceans annually.

Where has all the plastic waste gone? Researchers from George University compiled the imports and exports of plastic waste between 1988 and 2016 from  the United Nations (UN) Comtrade Database to analyze the pattern of global trade of the plastic waste over the past 28 years. Their finding was published in a recent issue of Science Advances. The United Nations (UN) Comtrade Database contains the imports and exports of the category “plastic waste, parings, and scrap” for four polymer classifications: polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS), and others reported. The “other” plastics group includes plastic waste polymers that do not yet have an internationally harmonized code used for reporting but encompasses polymers such as polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

Plastics can be challenging to recycle because of the wide variety of uses, additives, and blends that are used in a multitude of products, as well as the fact that there are material properties that can limit the number of times that products can be recycled. Commingled and single-stream recycling operations have also contributed to more contamination than ever before in the recycling stream, especially for plastic waste, but the emerging markets in China in the 1990s found that the material could be used profitably, especially when ships could efficiently deliver the material, and that it could be used to manufacture more goods for sale or export. For exporting countries, shipping-processed plastic waste to China and surrounding countries has provided an outlet for managing plastic waste, preventing it from going to landfill or incineration in the source countries. China got cheap plastic and the exporting countries go rid of their trash.

Plastic China

China has been a dumping ground for the world’s problematic plastics since the 1990s. Global annual imports and exports of plastic waste began to rapidly increase in 1993, having grown 723 and 817% in 2016, respectively. In 2016 alone, about half of all plastic waste intended for recycling (14.1 million MT) was exported by 123 countries, with China taking most of it (7.35 million MT) from 43 different countries. Since it began reporting in 1992, China has imported 106 million MT of plastic waste, making up 45.1% of all cumulative imports. Collectively, China and Hong Kong have imported 72.4% of all plastic waste. However, Hong Kong acts as an entry port into China, with most of the plastic waste imported to Hong Kong (63%) going directly to China as an export in 2016.

Trade of plastic waste in mass and trade value

Sources of plastic waste imports into China in 2016 and cumulative plastic waste export tonnage (in million MT) in 1988–2016

High Income (HIC) countries have overwhelmingly been the primary exporters of plastic waste since 1988, contributing to 87% of all exports and valued at $71 billion USD. Imports of plastic waste are almost evenly split between HIC and Upper Middle Income (UMI) countries, which collectively account for 96% of all imports and are valued at $106 billion USD. All of the top 10 countries exporting plastic waste are HIC, except for Mexico (UMI) ranking fifth. Seven of the top 10 countries importing plastic waste are HIC as well, except for China (first), India (ninth), and other Asia not elsewhere specified. If taken collectively, then the EU-28 would be the top exporter.

Excluding Hong Kong, the United States is the leading exporter of PVC and other plastics. Germany is the leading exporter of PE, and Japan is the leading exporter of PS. Each of these countries remains in the list of top five cumulative exporters for all four polymer groups. China is the leading importer of three of four polymer groups, with Hong Kong leading China in importing PS.

Regionally, EAP (East Asia and Pacific) countries are characterized as the leading exporters of plastic waste; however, this is because of the large flow of exports from Hong Kong to China. Excluding Hong Kong, ECA (Europe and Central Asia) countries lead in exporting (for example, Germany, UK, and Netherlands), contributing to 32% ($27.6 billion USD) of all exports, followed by NA countries (United States and Canada) contributing to 14% ($14.3 billion USD) of exports. EAP countries have dominated the import of plastic waste, having imported 75% ($83.3 billion USD) of plastic waste imports since 1988. Collectively, the nation members of the OECD have contributed to 64% ($57.4 billion USD) of all exports, suggesting that the trade of plastic waste may largely be occurring between OECD and EAP countries. Furthermore, 33 of 35 OECD countries are considered HIC, 90% of the top 10 exporting countries are members of the OECD, and 23 of 36 EAP countries are low- or middle-income countries. These findings are consistent with historical trends of waste management practices in which low- and middle-income countries often import waste material for recycling. Consequently, wealthier nations, with more robust waste management infrastructure, are sending plastic waste to countries that are still developing economically with less-developed waste management infrastructure. Relatively high domestic management costs in exporting countries versus the cheaper processing fees in China have driven the trends illustrated here (for example, it is often cheaper to transport recycled materials by ship to China than it is to transport domestically by truck or rail). In addition, exporting countries have preserved solid waste management capacity by sending waste to China where there are progressive environmental policies related to circular economy (for example, Environmental Protection Law, Circular Economy Promotion Law, etc.); however, implementation of these policies has lagged, largely because of the top-down approach that has been taken, which lacks social and environmental indicators supporting market-based policy and public participation.

 https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=p0705hccu3f&width=500&height=375&auto=0

China is still developing solid waste management infrastructure, and an estimated 1.3 million to 3.5 million MT of plastic is estimated to enter the oceans annually from its coastline. Using population data, waste generation rates, and percent plastic in the waste stream, we estimated the contribution of imports to the domestic waste stream in China. On the basis of the data from 2010 to 2016, the import of plastic waste to China contributes 10 to 13% additional mass to the domestic plastic waste that is already generated within the country and is difficult to manage. In 2016, the imports (7.35 million MT) contributed another 10.8% of waste to the 60.9 million MT of plastic waste estimated to be generated in China.

Mountains of plastic waste in a still from Plastic China by Wang Jiu-liang

China won't solve the world's plastics problem any more

China has increasingly implemented more rigid waste import policies, starting prior to 2010. Then, in 2013, the relationship between plastic waste exporters and China as the primary importer was disrupted when China introduced a temporary restriction on waste imports that required significantly less contamination. This operation was referred to as the “Green Fence” and highlighted the fragility of global dependence on a single importer. The goal of the Green Fence campaign was to increase the quality of the plastic waste that China was receiving while also reducing illegal foreign smuggling and trading.

While informal (that is, undocumented) flows of plastic waste are known to occur, available data from the European Union (EU) estimate that these instances are a fraction of the waste that which is legally traded and documented. That said, the Green Fence succeeded in its aforementioned goals; however, it did not entirely stop the informal flow of plastic waste, and true quantities are unknown at this time. While the Green Fence campaign was temporary, in 2017, China announced a new import policy permanently banning the import of nonindustrial plastic waste. An estimated cumulative 111 million MT of plastic waste will be displaced by 2030. The displaced plastic waste is equal to nearly half (47%) of all plastic waste that has been imported globally since reporting began in 1988. The ban has already caused the EU to consider a tax on throwaway plastics.

With plastic production and use continuing to rise, and companies and countries both committing to circular economies and increasing plastic recycling rates, the quantity of plastic waste needing a “home” will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. Where will the plastic waste go now? 

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