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About 85 percent of mixed paper and OCC exported out of California has been bound for China in recent years, and as the Asian behemoth closes its doors to some of those imports, the state’s recycling industry is feeling the hit.
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For North America’s largest garbage and recycling companies, 2017 overall was a good year in recycling. That being said, the fourth quarter was a bad one for the industry.
Clarissa Morawski
It’s no secret that China is a leader in international world trade. For years, the country has been a major importer of many types of foreign goods, including timber, dairy products, and petrochemicals. China is also the world’s largest importer of waste. Last year, Chinese manufacturers and recyclers imported 7.3 million metric tons of waste plastics (valued at $3.7 billion), accounting for 56 percent of world imports in that category. It also took in more than half of the world’s exports of waste paper.
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Chinese authorities have issued the first five rounds of recyclable-material import permits for 2018. Compared with 2017, the country has allowed substantially less recycled plastic to enter the country and approved permits for far fewer companies across all material types.
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Amid market disruption from China’s import restrictions, Republic Services continued to realize recycling revenue gains last year.
Brent Bell, Waste Management
Leaders from Waste Management and two giant consumers of recovered fiber last week detailed the variety of ways their operations have been impacted by recent import shifts in Asia. They also laid out some ideas to help lift material quality.
Recyclables exported out of the U.S. are moving to Southeast Asia, where reclaimers and mills are dramatically increasing purchases as China closes its doors to recovered materials. New figures illustrate that shift.
A representative from a European firm that has felt the direct impacts of China’s import restrictions on recovered plastic recently offered an inside look at the fallout from the unprecedented disruption to industry trade.
Chinese plastics recycling companies are considering processing infrastructure investments in Southeast Asia, the U.S. and elsewhere.
Update: China has filed its official contamination proposals with the World Trade Organization, and they list a 0.5 percent threshold for most recyclables, down from the 1 percent limit that was previously considered.
China will shift its planned threshold for contamination in scrap paper imports from 0.3 percent to 1 percent, seemingly in response to concerns the original proposed limit would be impossible to hit.
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