1.3. The global waste trade
In 2007, the world traded more than 191 million tons of waste.48 Moreover, the annual physical weight of waste traded in international markets grew by 67% in five short years, from 114 million tons in 2002 to 191 million tons in 2007.49 According to the reports handed over to the Basel Convention Committee, between 1993 and 2001, the amount of waste crisscrossing the globe increased from 2 million tons to more than 8.5 million tons.50 It should be noted that not all the countries report to the Basel Convention Committee.
There are four main types of possible drivers behind this big business of movement of waste.51 Economic factors includes different prices for treatment or disposal of the waste, different prices on secondary raw materials, national waste taxes, and transport costs. Legislative factors include national legislations, waste policies or principles concerning shipment of waste, and the differences in terms of law enforcement. Technical factors include the lack of treatment technologies or capacities on the part of exporting member states, and special industrial structure. Moreover, there are still some demography and infrastructure factors including geography and population size, long borders or many sea ports.
As the economy develops dramatically, China imports a large amount of solid waste every year. The reasons behind China great importation of waste are as follows: domestic demand of raw materials far surpasses domestic supply; the global price of raw materials are going up continuously; the imported waste is of higher quality and at lower price than domestic collected waste; the environmental pollution of producing materials from waste is less that of directly exploiting the mineral stones.52 In 2011, the total amount of imported solid waste was more than 57 million tons, and the total output of imported solid waste valued at least 40 billion dollars.53
Figure I: China’s imported amount of solid waste from 2006 to 2011
Source: The Annual Report of Inspection and Quarantine of the Imported Solid Waste Used As Raw Material, 2011
According to the report issued by Basel Convention Secretariat, China is the world’s biggest importer of waste and secondary raw materials.54 Imported solid waste has nourished entire sectors of the local economy with the supply of scraps and disassembled materials in many cities of China. For example, in Xintang, a village in the province of Guangdong, there are more than 800 enterprises specialized in processing plastic waste, which consume about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste per year. 55
While the imported solid waste has made up an indispensable part of China’s recycling industry, negative news about the imported solid waste frequently draw the attention of the public. For example, the scandal of the illegal shipment of waste from the United Kingdom in 2006,56 and the cases of the lead poisoning of children happened in several Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Shantou, Taizhou.57 Therefore, To better take advantage of the imported solid waste while protecting environment and ensuring the public health, Chinese governments has issued a series of laws, measures, regulations, which constitute China’s policy of importing solid waste since 1980s.
Figure II: Ten main non-OECD destinations for EU exports of non-hazardous waste in 2011
The source of data: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/import-and-export-rules/export-from-eu/waste-shipment/