Waste is one of the biggest threats to the planet today, and as the global population continues to rise, the amount of waste being produced keeps on going up. Advances in recycling technology are helping to improve the situation, but recycling isn’t as simple as many people think.
We tend to assume that the plastic cups we toss in the recycling bin are then sent off to local recycling plants, turned into other plastic items, reused and recycled again.
In actual fact, for many years, a whole lot of plastic has been exported to other nations.
Until recently, the vast majority of plastic waste has been shipped out to other countries, mostly around Asia. For rich countries like the United States, the exportation of trash has always been a great way to hit recycling targets and cut down on the size of domestic landfills, but it poses big threats for the poorer countries where all that garbage ends up.
A lot of the materials that can’t be recycled simply get thrown into landfills, poisoning the environment and generating threats to public health and safety. Other times, plastics get burned illegally, releasing toxic fumes into the air.
China was the biggest receiver of these trash exports from the US and the EU, but in 2017, it banned imports of mixed plastic and mixed paper due to the various issues that were being caused by all that garbage.
When China stopped taking the trash, Malaysia was identified as the next best option and began receiving huge amounts of garbage from Western nations. In recent times, however, Malaysian people started to protest and the country began sending trash back to its senders, saying it didn’t want to be bullied into becoming the world’s landfill.
In response, America’s biggest trash collection company, Waste Management, Inc, has announced that it is no longer exporting any plastic waste beyond North America.
The company has revealed that it sells 77% of its recyclable materials, like paper and plastic, domestically, stating: “Plastic exports have dwindled to zero in 2019.”
The company’s statement also said:
In response to concerns about plastic in the environment, Waste Management is not shipping plastics collected on its residential recycling routes and processed in its single stream material recovery facilities to locations outside North America. The company is working to help establish responsible domestic markets for recycling and beneficial use of these materials.
Waste Management, Inc has also stated that it is disposing of excess materials responsibly in an effort to become more eco-friendly and make bigger efforts to protect the planet.
The company’s actions follow in the wake of several other leading trash management companies like Republic Services, Waste Connections, and Casella Waste Systems all also announcing that they’re no longer exporting trash to other countries.
Leading environmental organizations like Greenpeace have welcomed the news. John Hocevar of Greenpeace USA said “Companies should not be exporting plastic waste for other countries to clean up our mess” and the organization also issued a statement saying that Waste Management, Inc and other companies had “made the right call”.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
