Single-Use Plastics: Market Based Solutions for a Market Based Problem

Karly Lohan is a student in the Master of Coastal and Ocean Policy program at UNC Wilmington. She is a 2018 graduate of Salisbury University with a B.S. in Biology. Karly currently works for a local research based non-profit, Plastic Ocean Project, that focuses on collaborative and integrative solutions for the plastic pollution crisis. 

Single-use plastics were introduced into the consumer market as luxury items during post WWII and quickly became a staple in American society. Our economy and society have benefited from plastic products in lighter packaging, clothing, construction materials, transportation, medical supplies, food safety, and a variety of other uses. Plastics were marketed as a revolutionary product that saved time, energy, and money and all you had to do was toss it in the trash. 

Public perception changed in the 1960’s when plastic pollution was first discovered in the world’s oceans during a climate of wakening environmental activism. Studies conducted in 1975 reported that the estimated annual flux of litter into the oceans was 6.4 million tons (MT), based on discharge from vessels and ship casualties. This number excluded a very important source of plastic pollution that we are now very much aware of, and that is land-based plastics. 

Land-based plastics are estimated to make up 80% of marine-debris. Plastics in the marine environment pose an ever-growing threat to marine and terrestrial ecosystems because of their persistence. The discharge of plastics from at-sea vessels has been banned, but abandoned fishing gear remains a significant source of ocean plastic pollution and rivers act as a highway for littered plastics that finds their way into storm drains. Weathering of plastic debris from wave-action, UV rays, and time cause fragmentation into micro-plastics that are small enough for marine invertebrates to digest and makes them virtually unachievable. 

Stina is a research-based company that crowd sources data and submits annual post-consumer plastic recycling reports. Observe the export trends associated with the 2017 National Sword policy. 

Where does your trash go? 

The global waste trade industry functions on a very simple economic principle: garbage is produced daily and needs to be discarded. A recycling industry was established because there are many types of consumer-based plastic products that can be recycled or downcycled into new products. 

In 2016, China imported 7.3-million tons of recycled plastics with a value of $3.7-billion, accounting for about 56-percent of global volume. An ongoing challenge with any recycling operation is to produce clean and marketable end products. Contamination can come in many forms and is defined as any type of “foreign” material other than the intended grades of material. Minimal or eliminated contamination is key to a successful recycling industry, and many nations like the United States do not have the infrastructure or recycling facilities to keep up consumer habits and uneducated disposal of products. 

In order to combat the issue of contamination in Chinese recycling facilities, the National Sword policy was passed with the goal of reducing contamination rates. Enacted in 2017, the National Sword is China’s strictest imports of solid wastes as raw materials, specifically plastics which have been classified as a hazardous waste under the Basel Convention. Acceptable limits for contamination in plastic waste material were reduced from 5-10% to 0.5%, putting exporters with lowest contamination and highest purity levels in highest demand and halting exports from the Western hemisphere overnight. 

This policy shift was perceived as a drastic move from the United States and Canada, when in fact, the Chinese National Sword was years in the making in the consideration of environmental and human health impacts as a result of the waste import industry. 

Pacific Island nations such as Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam saw an influx of ships to their ports full of rejected waste. Even though recycling industries exist in these countries, they are struggling to build the infrastructure to deal with their own waste, let alone millions of tons from the United States and Canada. When ships were refused, some resorted to dumping tons of plastic into the ocean, lining beaches and ports with trash. 

Who is at fault? 

Fingers have been pointed at China since 2017, both by Pacific nations that blame China for the influx of marine pollution they have received and by the United States and Canada for the stagnant plastic in limbo that they have to manage. 

Almost three years later, there is speculation as to whether China's National Sword has directly resulted in an influx of plastic pollution in marine environments or whether this policy has put a spotlight on plastic pollution in a new way. We do know that the United States’ material recovery facilities are beginning to expand operations, upgrade equipment, and hire larger staff to handle sorting and improve contamination rates. 

China's import ban has provided those in the plastic industry with two main opportunities because it creates an incentive for nations with resources to trade clean waste. 

First, exporters with the lowest contamination and highest purity levels can continue participating in the existing market. This allows nations to gain a competitive advantage in a global market while attracting higher revenues from buyers and customers that value clean plastics. Second, the reduced and more selective import stream in China provides opportunity for other governments and industries to explore other supply chains, therefore catalyzing the commercial opportunities for domestic waste sorting and recycling industries around the world.