The restrictions on the import of scrap products in mainland China have affected Hong Kong's "cardboard grandma"
HONG KONG - This summer, the number of waste paper hides in the streets of Hong Kong has dropped by nearly a third, starting to worry Liu Xia Jun, who recycle waste.
'I do not eat anything and I can do more,' said Liu Xiaojun, who was already a part-time cooker, sleeping less than five hours a night and earning only $ 500 a month. The price falls to 6 cents per kilogram, which means she has to do more.
Since the 1990s, to help drive the prosperity of China's export-oriented manufacturing industry, waste paper, plastic scrap and scrap metal have been shipped to China for use as raw materials all over the world and are referred to as 'solid waste' by China. In 2016, China Some $ 18 billion worth of solid wastes were imported.
But China does not want to be a trash can in the world, and in summer Beijing's regulatory agencies cite health and environmental issues and took a particularly severe blow to what they call "foreign trash."
Profile picture: 2016 On November 17, staff carried smuggled waste clothes at Shenzhen Tuyang Ferry Pier. Xinhua News Agency reporters Mao Siqian
Like so many other aspects of the world economy, China's decision splashed on a large supply chain, whether it is a large Texas waste company or a small pile of waste plastics in Hong Kong, like Liu Xiaojun 'Pick up the paper mother.' Scrap dealers hurry to find other buyers in Asia, but the Chinese market is too large, it is difficult to be easily replaced.
'It's like switching the valve overnight,' said Jim Fish, Houston-based president of Waste Management, the largest domestic waste recycler in North America.
Over the years, in order to speed up the manufacturing industry to promote economic growth, the Chinese government is willing to endure some of the shortcomings of waste products, namely the low-end recycling of contaminated soil and rivers in its own country, but perhaps China's economy has become less and less Need to sacrifice the environment like this.
'Pollution in industry is not just a problem for China. It is a common challenge for the entire world,' said Wang Jiu-liang, director of Plastic Kingdom.
Information Picture: Shantou Customs and Lufeng Public Security, Border Defense, Private Fighting, and Industrial and Commercial Departments Smashed a Store of Defected Old Clothing Stores for Smuggling in Shishi Town (photo by Xinhua News Agency, March 3)
Chinese regulators crackdown on imported trash began in 2013 with a series of port inspections mandating that foreign recyclers improve their operations and invest in new trash classification techniques.
In July, China informed the World Trade Organization that it banned the import of 24 types of waste, including certain types of paper and plastic, by the end of the year to tighten its regulatory regime and that Chinese regulators also began to restrict imports of waste paper.
'I am angry, but I know I am just a small businessman.' Recently, Liu Xiaojun, 63, commented on the waste paper recycling control while sorting out cardboard, plastic and soda cans in the mouse-breeding streets of Mongkok in Hong Kong. .
In this piece of semi-autonomous land in China, Liu Xiaojun and other millions of humble recyclables will go to the simple collection points to sell the waste products to the recyclers, which will then be processed at the refuse collection and treatment plant, Export to mainland China or other regions.
In the United States, the new rules mean more rubbish remains in the country, which may be good news for some recyclers, according to the Washington lobby group Waste Recycling Industry Association, but also means that countries need to land more rubbish.
In a "foreign garbage" destruction operation carried out by the Shenzhen Customs, the staff were handling the smuggling of used clothing (Malaysia's Sin Chew Daily website)
'Without China, the United States will be able to recover less and spend more. Recyclers need to upgrade their facilities to dispose of rubbish, which will increase the cost of states and taxpayers in the United States.' Recycling experts, 'Waste Planet: Billion Dollar Waste Says Adam Minter, author of the trade trip.
Workers at Hong Kong landfills and refuse treatment plants said the imminent ban on smoking in Beijing is already affecting their income.
Ryan Cheung, manager of a recycling facility in the outskirts of the country far behind China, said the local trash collectors sold more plastic than before, apparently because the new rules have been Limit their choice, and the result is corrugated metal sheet factory roof, a zhadai gray packaging film into mountains.
'I can not buy it anymore,' he said, standing beside a pile of broken Barbie dolls, a garbage truck struggling to a landfill on a nearby road. '