China’s Operation National Sword policy initiative curbed the country’s imports of most types of solid waste for disposal, and imposed stringent limits on the materials that it will accept for recycling. The policy’s ramifications have hugely impacted the many foreign economies that for decades relied on China’s materials recovery facilities (MRFs) to deal with the bulk of their recyclable waste materials, from plastics and packaging to glass, metals, and wood.
Before National Sword came into force in 2018, 70 per cent of plastics collected in the US and 95 per cent of plastics collected in the European Union (EU) were consigned to a slow boat to China, according to the Yale School of the Environment. A study by the University of Georgia estimated that by 2030, the policy could have ‘displaced’ some 111 million tonnes of discarded plastic.
As other eastern nations also impose strict limits on the amount of western refuse they will accept, the waste disposal...