Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. For years, China has been the top importer of recyclable material taking in about half of the world's plastics and paper and turning the rubbish into useful materials, so it was quite a shock. In seventeen Wendy Chinese government announced it was changing its rules on
the importation of waste. Instead of accepting bales of recycled materials with five percent impurities, as had been the norm, China said it would only accept bales containing less than one percent, a nearly impossible standard to meet in the short term. When the Chinese announced the change, no one was exactly sure how it would play out, but now
they know. As the new rule took effect in January eighteen, many countries, including the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain and Germany, began to scramble to find ways to dispose of their recyclables that just months ago would have gone to China. As a consequence, tons of inventory began piling up on docks in manicip landfills and in processing facilities. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, for example, the city needed special
permission to bury three thirty tons. That's three metric tons of plastic in the local landfill, and just for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer just to tons for the rest of this piece. Apologies, metric users. Just keep in mind that our tons are a wee bit heavier, and feel free to insert your own joke about Americans
and heaviness here anyway. Adina Renee Rattlers, Senior director of International Relations and international Affairs for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, says China didn't give the world a whole lot of time to get ready for this. The rules changing compasses twenty four categories of solid waste, including certain plastics, paper, and textiles. The problem, Chinese officials claim, though others dispute this, is that large amounts of contaminated material were being mixed
in with the recyclables that the country was accepting. The officials also said that much of what they were taking in was not properly scrubbed and sorted. They wrote to the World Trade Organization when announcing the move. Large amounts of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in with the solid waste that can be used as raw materials.
This polluted China's environment seriously. Since the nineteen eighties, China has been the world's largest importer of solid waste, using these recyclables to power its manufacturing industry and to fuel its burgeoning economy. As Chinese industry grew more robust, the country also became one of the world's most polluted, forcing the government to take steps to protect the environment. Adler says they do have a tremendous environmental problem on their hands.
One of the government's directives has been to better manage waste domestically and do it quickly. They gave us practically no time for any kind of transition. Regardless, China's crackdown has provoked a soul searching moment as the rest of the planet tries to find both near term and long term solutions. For years, the world's nations relied on China
to take in its unwanted refuse. In for example, China bought almost fifty million tons of trash, while the European Union in sent eight percent of its sorted plastic to the Asian giant Ireland of its plastic waste, and the United States sixteen million tons of recycled scrap. In sixteen, China processed seven point three million tons of paper, metals
and used plastic. Now that China has essentially closed its doors, there are those who say its actions should be a wake up call because there's simply no more room at the local landfill or incinerator plant. Consider these numbers. Every American will send about sixty four tons of waste to a landfill over the course of his or her life. Moreover, the average American throws away four point three pounds that's
one point nine kilograms of trash every day. Americans as a whole toss out eleven million tons of glass each year. All that glass weighs as much as four hundred and forty Titanics or thirty Empire State buildings. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Americans recycle or compost only a third of the solid waste stream. The world produces more
than three hundred million tons of plastic each year. The World Economic Forum says that by any fifty there will be so much plastic floating in the ocean it will outweigh all of the world's fish. So what's the solution. Simon Ellen, chief executive of Britain's Recycling Association told The New York Times, we've got to start producing less and we've got to produce better quality recyclable goods. Consider the example San Francisco has set for the rest of the planet.
That city is one of the most recyclable friendly communities in the world. It's so called zero Waste initiative, one of the most muscular in the nation, is designed not to send any trash to the landfill or incinerator, but
rather to increase the rate of recycling and composting. In two thousand two, the city set a goal to be zero waste by To that end, Recollogy San Francisco, the employee owned firm that runs San Francisco's recycling program along with the city, has developed many programs to produce better quality recyclables while drastically reducing the amount of trash people toss. Together. Recollogy and San Francisco instituted one of the first programs
that picks upcome postable material at the curb. People simply put compost into green bins so it doesn't co mingle and contaminate other recyclables. Robert Reid, spokesman for Ecology, set in an email. The goal of these zero waste initiative encourages San Franciscans to reduce waste, reuse materials, and be more attentive to recycling and composting. Last November, we reached
the milestone of composting two million tons. We diverted all that material from landfill disposal and instead turned it into nutrient rich compost that's applied to local farms and vineyards. Recycling is good for the economy too, he continued. We created more than two hundred new jobs permanent local jobs in San Francisco in ten years while expanding the city's
recycling program. Each day, the world's population generates nearly three point five million tons of garbage, ten times the amount from a century ago in and that number is expected to grow to eleven million tons by the end of the twenty first century. But there is a glimmer of hope. The zero waste movement is strong in many communities. The best way out of the trash and we've created, it seems, is to recycle and recycle smartly. Today's episode was written
by John Paritano and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other environmental topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com.