The Impact of China’s Tightening Environmental Regulations on International Waste Trade and Logistics

Abstract

In recent years, China’s influence as the dominant importer of waste products has reshaped global waste trade through restrictive programs such as Operation Green Fence in 2013 and National Sword in 2017. These restrictions have greatly affected not only China’s import of waste products but also the international trade and global logistics of these products. China’s import restrictions in 2017 decreased the country’s import of waste plastic by 92% and used paper by 56%. It also increased the unit value of these two categories of waste by 27% and 13%, respectively, showing an improvement in the quality of imported waste. Most of these impacts originate from intensive margins. The restrictions diverted the flow of waste mostly to the low- and middle-income countries of the East Asian and Pacific regions along with Europe and Central Asia, as their imports increased by 161% and 266% for waste plastic and 101% and 77% for used paper, respectively. Compared with Operation Green Fence, the impact of the 2017 National Sword has been much higher, with shipping companies faced with a lack of products on backhaul routes and forced to change their longstanding practices.

The waste ban in China: what happened next? Assessing the impact of new policies on the waste management sector in China

“…It is a new start and possibility for the structure of the domestic waste management system thanks to the involvement of the Internet and big data. Whilst some information has been derived from structural changes of the global waste trade network (Wang et al, 2020 ) (Pu et al, 2019 ; Tran et al, 2021 ), and mechanisms of response (Tan et al, 2018 ), ‘Big data’ application for the waste management systems could be a potential bright path for the transition of domestic companies.…”

“…China’s solid waste ban not only changed the global recycled solid waste supply chain, which diverted solid waste to other markets, like Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia (Tran et al, 2021 ); but also led to the construction of new infrastructure for solid waste management in these new destination countries to provide the capacity to handle sudden growth in waste streams (Hook & Reed, 2018 ). In addition, the diverted plastic scrap appears to be handled by small-scale waste processors, operating under little to no environmental regulations (Hook & Reed, 2018 ).…”

Efficient Depolymerization of Polystyrene with Table Salt and Oxidized Copper

“…1 In the United States, the need for plastic recycling has been promoted by multiple factors, including the China National Sword policy, brand owner commitments, and strong public sentiments against plastic waste. 2 The annual production of plastics has exceeded 80 billion lbs/year in the United States alone, and 760 billion lbs/year of plastics are produced globally. 3 This fast accumulation rate has exerted tremendous pressure on waste management systems and thus created an urgent need for an effective and practical solution to handle plastic waste.…”

Impact of China’s National Sword Policy on the U.S. Landfill and Plastics Recycling Industry

“…Later, in 2016, China announced that secondary material commodity imports from the U.S. would be restricted and followed this with the launch of the National Sword program in 2017. Finally, in March 2018, China introduced a 0.5 percent contamination limit along with an outright ban on many recyclables, including plastics [9]. Recent research has highlighted the positive ecological impacts of lowered shipping of plastic scrap over large distances as a positive effect of China's Sword [10].…”

“…Recent research has studied the impacts of China's National Sword on global waste markets. The authors of [9] focus on the import of waste plastic and used paper by China and find that China's import volumes of waste plastic and used paper decreased by 92% and 56%, respectively, after the National Sword. The authors of [17] study the effects of China's National Sword Policy on the U.S. recycling system and examine the waste management and recycling systems in different countries.…”