In 2017, China banned all plastic from entering the country. This single decision has disrupted the entire global flow of recycling. Stuff that once found its way to China is now ending up in Vietnam, Thailand, and most of all, Malaysia.
But those countries can’t process the amount of plastic China used to, and waste from the US, Europe, Japan, and beyond is piling up in small mountains.
China’s ban didn’t break the system, but it revealed just how broken it really is. In episode one of our Quartz’s video series Because China, they go to Malaysia, Shanghai, and New Jersey to figure out what is going on in the wild world of recycling.
A new study out of Belgium has found that air pollution particulate matter does, in fact, cross the placenta into the bodies of fetuses, a finding that shows the necessity of cutting air pollution across the globe. We are poisoning an entire generation of children who haven’t even been born yet, and yet there’s utter silence from the so-called “pro-life” crowd on this issue. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Democracy Now! speaks to journalist Sharon Lerner about how corporations in the United States are refusing to turn to more sustainable materials, with most of the country’s plastic waste ending up in landfills or scattered around the world. According to her investigation, in 2015, the United States only recycled 9% of its plastic waste, and since then, that figure has dropped even lower. Lerner is a health and environment reporter at The Intercept and a reporting fellow at Type Investigations. Her series “The Teflon Toxin” was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.
