China's "National Sword" Policy Strikes the Plastics Circular Economy

China's

The Mercury News – Silicon Valley.com: The United States, Australia, Hong Kong and much of Europe, have relied heavily on China as a destination for recovered mixed plastics, with an estimated 2/3 of plastics exported for processing and recycling from Australia alone, leaving a void in local processing capacity. Experts predict that the Chinese Government’s decision to dramatically restrict the importation of scrap plastic, expanding upon their previous “Green Fence” restrictions, means Australia, and other western countries will need to find new export markets or alternative end markets to avoid this recycling stream going to landfill. Globally there is a push for new and better end markets to be the focus, to achieve optimal social, environmental and economic plastics sustainability where the material is recaptured as a resource in its “afterlife” of its intended first use.

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