The irony will not be lost on the electronics sector. The Basel Ban Amendment, short a few remaining votes at the May meeting of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, ultimately failed to get the necessary support for passage in spite of much fanfare. The Basel Ban Amendment would have meant a virtual halt in the continued export of e-waste internationally. As of September 2019, it…
2019 will likely go down as the year that (developing) Asian countries have finally had enough of western garbage. Indeed, their final victory in repelling imports of unrecyclable plastics and other wastes won’t come too soon for international brand owners whose reputations have increasingly been harmed with the scrutiny now being paid to the final destinations of their products and packaging. The Shift in Asian Waste Imports It started last year with the China National Sword,…
Much has been made of the dramatic impacts that China’s “National Sword” (preceded by the more modest “Green Fence”) has had on the international movements of recyclable materials. Specifically, China’s decision to curtail the types of recyclable plastics it would accept has had a trinity of detrimental effects upon many developed world recycling markets: there has been a significant surplus of recyclables growing at collection points without a clear market; much of the content is…