Material Flow Patterns of the Global Waste Paper Trade and Potential Impacts of China’s Import Ban

Abstract

Waste paper, an essential substitute for wood and other plant-based fibers in paper making, is an indispensable part of the circular economy; yet, the impacts of China's ban on global waste paper cycles have not been well understood. We modeled the evolution of the global waste paper trade network during 1995− 2019. We found that the cumulative trade volume of global waste paper reached 1010 million tons in the last 25 years and showed a downward trend since 2015. The global import center of waste paper experienced a transfer from Europe to East Asia and then to Southeast Asia. The ban has stimulated some developed countries to reduce the exports of unsorted waste paper since 2017, but for many major importers their changes in waste paper trade patterns were related to waste paperboard, which was not banned by China, suggesting that this import change trend may be inevitable and irrespective of China's ban. Besides, India has replaced China to become a new import hub of unsorted waste paper. Our results lay a foundation for exploring the evolution of the future global solid waste cycle under the background of zero import of solid waste increasingly implemented by China and many other developing countries.

Mapping the Global Anthropogenic Chromium Cycle: Implications for Resource Efficiency and Potential Supply Risk

“…The processing of trade data addressed the following two issues: missing and mismatching data (see details in Figure S39). 27 The missing data mainly occur in weights of various finished products. If there are no available weight data of one finished product for year 2019 in one country, then we estimate the weight data of this finished product in this country by assuming that the unit commodity price follows a linear trend so that the weight data can be calculated by dividing the overall monetary value of this finished product in 2019 by the average unit weight of this finished product in the previous two years.…”

“…A higher modularity value means a cleaner clustering structure of this network. 27 The optimum community partition for each node can be obtained through the maximization of this modularity index, which can be calculated by using eq 6 i k j j j j y…”

“…26 Social network analysis is a widely applied method to identify the patterns of connections among components within a complex system. 27 It has been used to examine the topological features of the global trade networks. In recent decades, numerous commodities, such as fossil fuels, 28 waste paper, 27 and rare earth elements, 29,30 have been investigated by applying this method.…”

“…27 It has been used to examine the topological features of the global trade networks. In recent decades, numerous commodities, such as fossil fuels, 28 waste paper, 27 and rare earth elements, 29,30 have been investigated by applying this method. These studies demonstrate the advantages of this method in characterizing the structure and evolutionary pattern of the global trade.…”

The Edible Gray Oyster Fungi Pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq. ex Fr.) P. Kumm a Potent Waste Consumer, a Biofriendly Species with Antioxidant Activity Depending on the Growth Substrate

“…In addition, methane is formed during the rotting of paper waste, and is 25 times more toxic than CO 2 . At the moment, the volume of global waste paper has reached 1010 million tons in the last 25 years [ 15 ].…”