China no longer buying our garbage.
We’ve had a tsunami of policy garbage, now a tsunami of literal garbage is headed our way.
On Jan. 1, China made good on its promise to close its borders to several types of imported waste. By the next day, panic had already taken hold in countries across Europe and North America as trash began piling up by the ton, with no one having a clue where to now dispose of it all.
For more than 20 years, China has been the world’s recycling bin, accepting an enormous quantity of recyclable waste from nations worldwide. In 2016, China processed at least half of the world’s exports of waste plastic, paper and metals. The U.S. exported 16 million tons of waste to China that year, worth about $5.2 billion. Britain sent China enough garbage to fill up 10,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Trump can build his wall out of it.
https://youtu.be/M7jjj-Ij-44
“The U.S. exported 16 million tons of waste to China that year”
By weight, that was our #1 export. That’s what Americans are best at making.
So… What will the ships returning to China carry now?
Or will they just steam back to China with empty holds??
This is why economists call us “consumers.” As far as the 1% is concerned, buying that garbage is the entire point of our existence.
I am reminded of Mario Batali’s axiom for his restaurants: Nothing is thrown out until it has been served to a customer.
We could just pack it into all those used Amazon boxes and send it back to Amazon.
We could dig holes and fill them with garbage. Isn’t that the example economists always use? OK, they say “fill them back in,” but they don’t say with what.