July 2017, China announced the plastic waste import ban. Starting from 2018, China no longer import plastic waste, dropping a bombshell to other countries.
The line graph shows the amount of China plastic waste trade across the years. The import amount has a sharp decrease from 2016 to 2017.
Now, let’s look at Australia.
Australia Plastic waste export had been highly increased since 2001. However, after China plastic waste ban been announced in 2017, the amount drop significantly.
To further understand the impact of the policy on Australia, we need to note that China had been the biggest plastic waste trade partner of Australia.
With around 64,500 tonnes export to China solely in 2017, it is more than twice as much as Australia’s second partner, Malaysia.
Not only for Australia, plastic waste is a global issue.
See how other countries in the world also depend on China to reprocess the plastic waste.