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Southeast Asian plastic recyclers hope to clean up after China ban
Reuters ^ | January 15, 2018 / 8:10 PM | Michael Taylor

Posted on 07/26/2018 7:35:15 PM PDT by Zhang Fei

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Seah Kian Hoe was just 10 years old, he would jump on the back of his parent’s small truck during school holidays and help them collect scrap, going door-to-door around neighborhoods in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor.

Taking their haul back to the family yard, they would spend hours separating the glass bottles, aluminum cans, discarded newspapers and metal.

Seah now employs 350 people to help him run Heng Hiap Industries, one of Malaysia’s top five plastic recycling businesses which processes about 40,000 tonnes of waste per year from both domestic and overseas suppliers.

“Thirty five years ago, it was just scavenging - a very different era compared to now,” Seah told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I wanted to get into the recycling business and do it differently.”

Heng Hiap Industries is just one of the Southeast Asian plastics recycling companies gearing up to benefit from China’s decision to ban imports of plastic waste from the start of 2018.

Before the ban, which shocked many in the industry, China was the world’s dominant importer of such waste. In 2016, it imported 7.3 million tonnes of waste plastics, valued at $3.7 billion, accounting for 56 percent of world imports.

Over the past two decades, China was keen to suck in as much plastic waste as possible, helping feed its manufacturing expansion. But policy makers took action after a string of scandals involving unscrupulous players in the waste market.

Misdemeanors included stuffing containers with mixed or toxic rubbish rather than the specific types labeled for recycling, and illegal smuggling of waste that was simply dumped in landfill.

“Plastic China”, an award-winning documentary released in late 2016, ignited further public outrage by highlighting the human and environmental costs of the under-regulated, Wild West-style recycling industry.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; recycling
Chairman Xi bans the import of recycled garbage. Predictably, the business moves elsewhere. Xi's excuse was that the sources of garbage were slipping in dangerous toxic waste. I'm skeptical. They were dealing with American municipalities, not fly-by-night operators. The Chinese always have the option of withholding payment or not buying the next load from a given city or county.
1 posted on 07/26/2018 7:35:15 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
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To: Zhang Fei
 
 
That's the ebb & flow of business - when one door shuts, another opens up elsewhere.
 
 

2 posted on 07/26/2018 7:55:25 PM PDT by lapsus calami (What's that stink? Code Pink ! ! And their buddy Murtha, too!)
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To: Zhang Fei

I’m not skeptical of Chinese claims of getting dirty plastic trash. Our local collector is adding a surcharge to our recycle collection because so many lazy dits are mixing garbage with recyclables.


3 posted on 07/26/2018 8:53:27 PM PDT by Hartlyboy
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To: Zhang Fei

Heard today that Disney is starting to ban ALL plastic straws etc effective MID 2019

One would think if the product was that vile the word from Corporate would be to box it all up NOW and properly dispose of it and don’t use it again.

Wouldn’t imagine that since it is already paid for it isn’t quite as ‘lethal’.

An ‘honest’ company would bite the bullet on it seeing as it is such a ‘danger’.


4 posted on 07/26/2018 8:59:19 PM PDT by xrmusn ((6/98)""If bacon kills you and smoking kills you, How come you smoke bacon to cure it?")
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To: Zhang Fei

Heard today that Disney is starting to ban ALL plastic straws etc effective MID 2019

One would think if the product was that vile the word from Corporate would be to box it all up NOW and properly dispose of it and don’t use it again.

Wouldn’t imagine that since it is already paid for it isn’t quite as ‘lethal’.

An ‘honest’ company would bite the bullet on it seeing as it is such a ‘danger’.


5 posted on 07/26/2018 9:00:29 PM PDT by xrmusn ((6/98)""If bacon kills you and smoking kills you, How come you smoke bacon to cure it?")
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