Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • On this episode of China Uncensored,

  • China's garbage ban stinks!

  • And we're back.

  • The Chinese Communist Party has come up

  • with a brilliant solution to its pollution problem

  • blame it on the foreigners!

  • Pollution is one of the few problems

  • the Chinese regime can't ignore.

  • Because it's really easy to see.

  • T

  • hat is if you can see anything.

  • So after decades of rapid industrialization

  • and economic growth at any cost,

  • the Chinese regime is doing what it does best

  • cracking down on things.

  • In this case, pollution.

  • But the Party is also doing

  • the other thing it does best

  • shifting the blame.

  • China is banning foreign garbage.

  • Foreign garbage is loathed by everyone,”

  • as one Chinese environment minister put it.

  • In this notification to the World Trade Organization,

  • the Chinese regime announced it would ban

  • the import of 24 kinds of solid waste.

  • That includes things like paper,

  • as well as, “tires, textiles, plastic, and glass,

  • and it will limit the importation of other waste

  • such as steel, copper and aluminum scrap.”

  • China is also banning other types of waste,

  • like Jersey Shore DVDs.

  • The reason?

  • Protection of human health or safety;

  • Protection of animal or plant life or health;

  • and Protection of the environment.

  • Now you might be asking yourself,

  • China imports foreign garbage?

  • I mean,

  • I know the US imports a lot of Chinese garbage.

  • But who imports actual garbage?

  • Well, you may not know this,

  • but garbage is big business.

  • You may see a pile of trash,

  • but I see gold!

  • Gold!

  • You hear me?!

  • Recycling other people's garbage

  • is a global industry worth billions.

  • And China is a huge part of it.

  • In 2016,

  • China imported 45 million tonnes of scrap metal,

  • waste paper and plastic,

  • together worth over 18 billion dollars.

  • And it's the United States

  • that's sending China most of its garbage.

  • According to the Solid Waste Association of North America

  • yes that's a thing

  • China is the largest export market

  • for recyclables generated in the United States.

  • They import about 13 million tons of paper

  • and nearly 800,000 tons of plastic

  • from the United States annually.”

  • And really it creates this circle of life thing.

  • China makes a lot of cheap goods.

  • They're packed into cardboard boxes,

  • and sent to the United States,

  • where they're briefly,

  • and then thrown away.

  • And all that waste ultimately makes a trip

  • back to where it started

  • Chinato be recycled.

  • It's beautiful.

  • But the benefits of recycling the world's garbage

  • went way beyond money.

  • 30 years of China's manufacturing boom

  • was fueled by garbage,

  • garbage the Chinese regime encouraged the world

  • to give to China.

  • Take copper for instance.

  • It's essential to modern living.

  • You can't transmit power or information without it.

  • But why mine your own copper

  • when the rest of the world is throwing theirs away?

  • According to the book, Junkyard Planet,

  • in 2012,

  • almost half of China's copper

  • was made from recycled scrap.

  • And 70% of that scrap

  • came from the United States.

  • Same goes for plastic and paper.

  • It's cheaper, quicker,

  • and easier to recycle plastic and paper

  • than it is to drill oil wells or cut down trees.

  • And it's a huge energy save on top of that.

  • According to Bloomberg,

  • Recycling 1 ton of paper saves enough energy

  • to power the average American home

  • for six months,

  • while using recycled material to produce plastic

  • reduces the energy required

  • by as much as 87 percent.”

  • So since China has benefitted so much

  • from recycling the world's garbage,

  • why the ban?

  • It's a convenient scapegoat.

  • Rather than dealing with

  • the root causes of pollution

  • which are numerous and complex

  • the Chinese regime can blame

  • the problem on foreigners,

  • and point to the ban as a tangible step

  • toward solving the problem.

  • The reality is,

  • most of China's pollution problem

  • comes from internal factors.

  • While recycling foreign garbage

  • has created a booming industry,

  • it's not always run in the safest

  • or most sanitary way,

  • China's own recycling system is a mess.

  • According to the World Bank,

  • in eight years China will be throwing away

  • 1.4 million tons of garbage a day.

  • Twice as much as the United States.

  • Half of that will be burned.

  • And according to an in-depth report by NPR,

  • they're burning garbage the cheapest way possible,

  • filling China's skies with an unknown amount

  • of cancer-causing heavy metal and dioxin emissions.”

  • Rather than solving the environmental problems,

  • this crackdown will actually worsen them

  • and do so at the expense of jobs

  • and economic growth around the world.”

  • According to this study,

  • 40,000 American jobs relied on

  • the garbage and recycling industry.

  • And in China,

  • that number is multiples larger.

  • The Chinese ban on foreign garbage,

  • while giving the Communist Party

  • something to boast about,

  • actually hurts Chinese people,

  • and doesn't really do much

  • to protect the environment.

  • In the meantime,

  • what happens to all that garbage?

  • Well, right now,

  • it's piling up in Hong Kong.

  • Eventually, other southeast Asian countries

  • will be able to take some of it

  • to give their economies

  • the boost it did for China.

  • But most of the garbage

  • will end up in landfills.

  • Or the ocean.

  • So what do you think of China's garbage ban?

  • Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.

  • Once again I'm your host Chris Chappell.

  • See you next time.

  • Are you tired of sorting through

  • all that garbage on YouTube,

  • just to find a few pieces of gold?

  • Well now you can do to ChinaUncensored.tv,

  • where we upload 24 karat gold

  • half-hour episodes every Friday.

  • Go there now:

  • ChinaUncensored.tv

On this episode of China Uncensored,

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it