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2018-07-26 Home Front: Culture Wars

China Exposes the Recycling Scam's Dirty Secret

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2018-07-26 06:26|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 The Chinese were doing this as long as there wasn't something more profitable to do, and it also encouraged us to hobble our own industries long-term with unrealistic demands.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2018-07-26 07:31|| 2018-07-26 07:31|| Front Page Top

#2 In 1991 I was working to relocate a newspaper recycling facility. They made cereal-box grey cardboard out of newspapers. Since 1898.

But most people still can't be bothered to separate recyclable from dirty diapers.

Posted by Bobby 2018-07-26 08:07|| 2018-07-26 08:07|| Front Page Top

#3 The recycling scam shipped garbage on dirty ships for dirty industries

Has anyone ever explained how you can ship garbage across the Pacific (and back) and make a profit?

Posted by Frozen Al 2018-07-26 11:15|| 2018-07-26 11:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Has anyone ever explained how you can ship garbage across the Pacific (and back) and make a profit?

It does sound a bit preposterous as a business plan - which suggests there is some sort of market distortion AKA government subsidy in play.

Posted by SteveS 2018-07-26 11:50|| 2018-07-26 11:50|| Front Page Top

#5 It does sound a bit preposterous as a business plan
I thought it had something to do with the imbalance of trade between China and the USA. Those ships that would have returned empty to China might as well haul something for whatever pitiful profit can be made. In any case, the ships usually have to make a round trip.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2018-07-26 11:55|| 2018-07-26 11:55|| Front Page Top

#6 Has anyone ever explained how you can ship garbage across the Pacific (and back) and make a profit?

They only ship it part way.

Posted by Skidmark 2018-07-26 12:38|| 2018-07-26 12:38|| Front Page Top

#7 Perfectly logical from the Chinese point of view, the return voyage didn't bring competition it brought paid for garbage half of which probably was offloaded in the middle of the Pacific.

Posted by ruprecht 2018-07-26 21:23|| 2018-07-26 21:23|| Front Page Top

#8 Perfectly logical from the Chinese point of view, the return voyage didn't bring competition it brought paid for garbage half of which probably was offloaded in the middle of the Pacific.

The Chinese pay for the garbage, to the tune of $3.7b in 2016, for plastics alone. They buy it because making plastic pellets from recycled garbage is cheaper than making it from petroleum feedstock - in China, anyway. Other countries also pay for it, but their prices are lower, because of simple protectionism and corruption. The problem is that they pay much less.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2018-07-26 22:24|| 2018-07-26 22:24|| Front Page Top

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