A major shipping line is refusing to export the West's plastic waste. Here's why it matters
来源:World Economic Forum;发表于:2022-05-12;人气指数:291
A major
shipping line is refusing to export the West's plastic waste.
Here's why it
matters
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/another-big-shipping-line-is-refusing-to-export-the-west-s-plastic-waste/
Countries like the US
will have to figure out how to take care of their own plastic waste now.
Image: Unsplash/Nick
Fewings
25 Apr 2022
Nicolás Rivero
Writer, Quartz
*A major shipping
line has announced it will stop taking scrap plastics on all of its vessels.
*The ban is being
seen as a milestone in the battle against plastic waste, says a tech expert.
*It means nations
reliant on exporting their scrap plastic, such as the US, will need to
massively increase their domestic recycling efforts.
As of today (April 15),
the world’s third largest shipping line, will no longer accept deliveries of
scrap plastic on any of its ships. CMA CGM’s ban is a milestone in a global
backlash against wealthy nations—especially the US—dumping plastic waste in
China and Southeast Asia.
China used to be
the biggest destination for scrap plastic; in 1992, the country imported
72% of all plastic waste, which it would recycle and use in manufacturing. But
as China’s economy has grown, so has its domestic plastic waste output. Now the
country has plenty of its own plastic to recycle, without accepting imports
from abroad.
China began limiting
plastic imports in 2017 through a policy initiative dubbed Operation
National Sword. Western countries scrambled to divert their plastic
exports to southeast Asian nations like Malaysia and Indonesia,
but these countries also banned or limited plastic imports in 2019.
As a result of these import restrictions, US plastic scrap exports have fallen
more than 70%.
US exports of plastic
waste have fallen by more than 70% since 2017.
Image: Quartz/United
States International Trade Commission
Shipping lines ditch
plastic scrap shipments
As China and its
neighbors began limiting plastic imports, shipping lines became wary of
accepting scrap plastic cargo. Receiving countries might refuse to accept the
scrap plastic, forcing shipping lines to dump the cargo or carry it back where
it came from. “Because of this increased risk, it no longer makes economic
sense for shipping lines to keep carrying plastic,” said Aditya Vedantam, an
assistant professor of management at the University of Buffalo, who studied
the impact of Operation National Sword on US recycling.
Most of the world’s
largest shipping lines—Maersk, MSC, and Hapag-Lloyd—stopped taking
plastic shipments to China in 2020. CMA CGM, a French shipping line, is going a
step further by rejecting plastic shipments anywhere on earth. That leaves
few companies willing to ship plastic waste, and even fewer countries that
accept it in bulk. Turkey, Canada, Vietnam, and Thailand are now among the
biggest waste importers but impose their own restrictions.
The US needs to scale
up domestic recycling
Now that recycling
hubs and shipping lines have started banning plastic imports, countries like the US will
have to figure out how to take care of their own plastic waste.
The EU has embraced
“extended producer responsibility” regulations, which force companies that
produce plastic products and packaging to pay for their recycling or
disposal. The EU has also created regulations to limit how much plastic
packaging companies can use and require companies to use recycled
plastics.
But the US lags behind
on regulating plastic and building the facilities needed to recycle it. The
country began dumping 23% more plastic into landfills after Operation
National Sword went into effect in 2017. State and local governments are just
starting to pass laws emulating EU regulations, but only in a few
jurisdictions. Yet the recent ban may create a robust domestic industry for the
waste.
“Because we’ve taken
advantage historically of this ability to export our scrap overseas, we haven’t
invested in domestic source reduction or increased recycling infrastructure,” said
Anja Brandon, a plastics policy analyst at the Ocean Conservancy. “As hard as
this is, all these efforts by other countries and by the shipping industry [to
block plastic exports] are really helping create incentives for us to make a
waste management system that works.”