The World’s Recycling Is in Chaos. Here’s What Has to Happen

China’s National Sword policy, enacted in January 2018, banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for that nation’s recycling processors, which had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. “Already, we’ve been seeing evidence in the past year of the accumulation of plastic waste in countries that are dependent on exporting,” says the University of Georgia’s Amy Brooks, a PhD student in engineering and lead author of a recent study on the impact of China’s import ban. “All recyclable plastics from municipal recycling programs have been pretty much banned,” says Anne Germain, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the US trade group National Waste and Recycling Association.

Source: www.wired.com