The leaders of the UK’s recycling industry admitted on Dec. 31 that they had “no idea” how to cope with it as the ban came into force, noting that hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic plastic could be burnt in Britain rather than recycled, according to The Telegraph.
“It’s a huge blow for us and a game-changer for our industry. We simply don't have the [recycling] markets in the UK so we do rely on the export markets,” Simon Ellin, Chief Executive of the UK Recycling Association, was quoted as saying by Today in December.
Britain currently ships around two thirds of its garbage to China for recycling, approximately 500,000 tonnes each year, according to the Telegraph.
“Exporter countries’ dependency on China’s recycling market has been striking in recent years, but it’s time for them to tackle their own waste problem rather than shift the responsibility to other developing countries,” said Lin Ziquan, a Beijing-based environmental protection volunteer.
“The world can’t continue with the current wasteful consumption model based on infinite growth in a finite world. Rather than find new places to export waste, governments and the private sector must find ways to simply reduce the amount of waste we are creating,” added Li.
