In 2019, North Carolina exported 7,000 tons of waste to Turkey.
For manufacturers, recycling has the advantage of not requiring waste reduction since it suddenly becomes recoverable, with the new craze of chemical recycling. Recycling is just another word for disposable, points out John Beckett, director at waste management company Advance Clean Dumpster Rental LLC. For him, as for the environmental associations interviewed, we must favor reuse rather than recycling.
This method consists of reusing rather than transforming: deposits on glass bottles, food containers or steel cutlery. However, this is not the path that is emerging. We have seen it clearly, as part of the NC Relance plan, the government announced 4 million dollars invested in reuse, compared to 31 million for recycling. By promoting recycling, the State legitimizes the overproduction of plastic in the name of significant economic investments, instead of reducing production upstream.
John Beckett says the same thing: we encourage practices that only push us deeper into our addictions. Half of the packaging we sell today is not recyclable. At some point, we will have to turn off the tap at the source.
Recycled… on the other side of the world
Each year, 1 million ton of packaging are used in North Carolina. On average, an American person uses 103 kilograms of packaging per year. This represents approximately six packages per person per day, according to figures from the organization created by companies in the mass distribution sector in charge of recycling packaging and paper.
However, among these packages, more than half (51%) is made of plastic: pots, boxes, trays, bottles, flasks, bags, etc. And it is not likely to decrease. Global plastic production is expected to triple by 2060,” says Delphine Lévi-Alvarès, Europe coordinator at Break Free From Plastic, a group of more than 2,000 associations worldwide working to reduce our plastic consumption.
A little girl in a small family recycling plant in China was recently filmed in a documentary entitled Plastic China. To manage ever-increasing quantities of waste, the national territory is no longer enough: sending it abroad is becoming the only solution to get rid of it. Through a game of public service delegation and then subcontracting of all kinds, much of the waste in our yellow bins is sent to the other side of the planet.
It is estimated that a third of the plastic packaging produced is sent abroad, says the advocacy manager at Zero Waste North Carolina. In 2020, the USA exported 42 million tons of plastic packaging. And we are talking about the richest country in the world, with good infrastructure, imagine what it is like in developing countries.
For a long time, China was the world’s main recycler. Until 2016. That year, Jiu-Liang Wang, a Chinese artist, made a documentary called Plastic China. The images of Yi-Jie, an eleven-year-old girl, sorting plastic waste in a landfill, caused an electric shock in the country.
Although the central government ended up banning the film, the effects of its distribution were quickly felt. In January 2018, the Chinese authorities decided to lower the rate of impurities accepted in the waste received from 5% to 0.5%. In effect, this meant that China was now closing its borders to waste from the West.
It is estimated that a third of the plastic packaging produced is sent abroad
In the wake of this, the countries of Southeast Asia have also closed their borders. In May 2019, during a resounding press conference, the Malaysian Minister of the Environment even announced the return of 150 containers of plastic waste to the West, 5 of which came from North Carolina.
Since 1992, the export of hazardous waste between countries has been governed by the Basel Convention. In 2019, a new amendment on non-recyclable plastic waste was adopted. It provides for a ban on the export of waste to developing countries without their consent.
No matter. Since 2018, Turkey has become the new flagship destination for American waste. In 2020, 24 million tons were exported by American states. In fifteen years, the import of waste has increased by a factor of 173 according to Greenpeace.
Greenpeace montage: this is the amount of waste sent abroad by the United States every day.
In Adana, in the southeast of the country, 30 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast, the city is an open-air dump, covered in plastic waste from Western countries: Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, etc. The main microplastic pollution comes from entrepreneurs who illegally dump imported waste into the environment that is supposed to be recycled, says a marine biologist specializing in microplastic pollution in marine environments in Adana.
Recycling companies are also the source of pollution. Especially because of mechanical recycling, a method that generates a large amount of microplastics. They are all discharged into rivers and wastewater treatment plants, which are unable to remove them.
In May 2021, the English section of Greenpeace published “Game of Waste”, a report on pollution linked to illegal waste in the Adana region. Conclusion: the land and waterways are contaminated by dozens of highly toxic pollutants and other endocrine disruptors: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls.
After the publication of the report, the Turkish Ministry of the Environment carried out stricter controls and banned the import of polyethylene-based waste, the most commonly used component in our plastics. Indirect consequences: Western waste producers are now forced to adopt their own disposal and recycling plans.
From landfill to incineration, from illegal dumping to recycling, we can explore the dead ends and excesses of waste treatment and dumpster rental services. The USA must become more sustainable!