China’s plastic import ban increases prospects of environmental impact mitigation of plastic waste trade flow worldwide

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the trend of plastic waste shipment from developed to developing countries has been increasing. In 2017, China announced an unprecedented ban on its import of most plastic waste, resulting in a sharp decline in global plastic waste trade flow and changes in the treatment structure of countries, whose impacts on global environmental sustainability are enormous but yet unexamined. Here, through the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, we quantified the environmental impacts of changes in the flow patterns and treatment methods of 6 types of plastic waste in 18 countries subsequent to the ban. In the short term, the ban significantly improved four midpoint indicators of environmental impact, albeit contributed to global warming. An annual saving of about 2.35 billion euros of eco-cost was realized, which is equivalent to 56% of plastic waste global trade value in 2017. To achieve global environmental sustainability in the long run, countries should gradually realize the transition from export to domestic management, and from landfill to recycling, which would realize eco-costs savings of about 1.54–3.20 billion euros.

Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions

“…Such practices have been widely criticized for dumping the burden of plastic pollution from developed countries to developing countries [199,250,251]. Recently, China banned the import of plastic wastes, and now, its new destinations are Southeast Asian countries that lack recycling facilities and are reported to be dumped in landfills and burned or leaked into the environment [250][251][252]. These highly unsustainable practices create unavoidable plastic pollution and huge inequalities in terms of environmental costs.…”

The Evolutionary Trend and Impact of Global Plastic Waste Trade Network

“…According to the statistics of import and export volume, Hong Kong is the largest export region and import region. Plastic waste flows from other countries to Hong Kong and then to mainland China, where Hong Kong is one of China's most important transshipment ports for plastic waste, transferring 22% of world trade to China each year [28]. In 2017, the pattern changed with the implementation of China's ban on plastic imports, whereby plastic waste from other countries could no longer be exported to Hong Kong, which was also a major factor in exports' decrease from the US, Japan and other countries.…”

Recent Advances in Waste Plastic Transformation into Valuable Platinum‐Group Metal‐Free Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

“…Meanwhile, the total unprocessed polymeric waste gathered in the European Union (EU) is more than 27 million tons/year [4,5] . It is important to underline that, previously, a significant portion of plastic waste was being exported to South Asia, but since these countries imposed restrictions on its import, hence, Europe must find out new ways to deal with this source [15,16] …”