Plastic Recycling Policy in China and the Waste Plastic Trade

Tadashi Hayashi ()
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Tadashi Hayashi: The University of Shiga Prefecture

Chapter Chapter 3 in Empirical Research on Environmental Policies in China, 2023, pp 37-54 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract China’s 2018 ban on imports of recyclable waste plastics has exposed problems in the global recycling system. The ban has revealed problems in the global circular economy systems: First, waste plastics are quickly, but inefficiently, shifting to the next unregulated importing country; second, the former exporters now have a surplus of untreated or improperly treated waste. Solving these problems will require promoting international cooperation to develop recycling systems within each country, as well as studying specific cross-border recycling systems. Responding to the issue of the environmental impact of imported waste plastics, the Basel Convention added “dirty plastic waste unsuitable for recycling” to the Convention’s regulatory scope. In line with this, each signatory country to the Convention amended its national laws to require the Convention to obtain the consent of the importing country before exporting waste plastics that do not meet the criteria subject to regulation. In order to establish a global recycling system, there is a need to support the enforcement of environmental regulations among member countries for those countries that find it difficult to implement the regulatory content of their national laws.

Keywords: Plastic waste; Plastic recycling policy; Waste plastics trade; Foreign waste plastics import ban; Global recycling of plastics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-99-5957-0_3

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-5957-0_3

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