When China Closed the Door to Plastic Waste: National Sword and the limits of outsourced recycling

For years, a recycling bin in one country could lead to a sorting plant in another. China bought discarded plastic as industrial feedstock, and exporters grew accustomed to a vast overseas market. Then China changed the conditions. The shock exposed how much of the world’s recycling trade relied on one country’s willingness to accept mixed material.

On 18 July 2017, China notified the World Trade Organization that it intended to prohibit imports of 24 categories of solid waste by the end of the year. The list included plastic waste from living sources, unsorted paper and waste textiles [1]. China issued a wider reform plan later that month, then tightened contamination standards as restrictions took effect in 2018 [2]. The rules arrived in stages, and each stage narrowed the route that exporters had come to depend on.

Why China mattered so much

China had used imported scrap as raw material for manufacturing since the 1980s. Plastic waste that still held value could be washed, sorted and processed into new products. Importing it offered a supply of feedstock, while exporters gained an outlet for material they had collected. The bargain also carried contamination and pollution into the places doing the sorting.

A study of trade from 1992 to 2016 found that China imported about 106 million tonnes of plastic waste, accounting for 45.1 percent of reported global plastic-waste imports over that period. China and Hong Kong together accounted for 72.4 percent, with Hong Kong frequently serving as a transit point [3]. The figures describe plastic waste trade, not all recycling in the world. Even within that narrower market, dependence on one destination was striking.

Another study estimated that, before the ban, 77.9 percent of US plastic-waste exports and 87.6 percent of Japan’s went to China or Hong Kong. The corresponding share for seven major European exporters was 57.5 percent [4]. Those exporters did not lose their entire recycling systems when the rules changed. They lost a major outlet, and many local programs had to face the cost of sorting or treating their own material.

A warning before the ban

Contamination had long troubled the trade. A bale labeled recyclable could contain food residue, mixed plastics and material with little market value. Chinese processors could recover what they needed, yet sorting and disposing of the remainder imposed costs on workers and surrounding communities. China’s Green Fence policy in 2013 restricted imports of mixed plastic waste with more than about 1.5 percent non-recyclable contamination [5].

The later restrictions followed an earlier warning that the old terms were becoming less acceptable.The 2017 announcement named 24 categories for prohibition. Further requirements lowered contamination limits for some materials in 2018. By January 2021, China had moved to a comprehensive ban on solid-waste imports [1][2]. The sequence matters because it separates an announcement, the first prohibited categories, tougher standards and the later complete closure.

Where the trade went

The immediate change was dramatic. A study comparing 2018 flows with an earlier baseline estimated that China’s plastic-waste imports fell 95.4 percent and global trade in that waste fell 45.5 percent [4]. Some material remained in exporting countries. Some moved to new destinations. The decline in total trade means we cannot say that all the waste once sent to China was simply rerouted.

The diversion that did occur was substantial. OECD analysis found that plastic-waste imports rose sharply in several destinations between early 2017 and mid-2018, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Turkey [5].

In the study of 18 countries, the share of US plastic-waste exports sent to five Southeast Asian countries increased from 5.24 percent to 46.5 percent, while Japan’s share rose from 4.34 percent to 55.9 percent [4]. A rapid shift in trade routes put pressure on places that had not planned to receive such volumes.

Receiving countries responded in different ways, including tighter import rules. Exporters faced stockpiles, higher processing costs and questions from municipalities about what their recycling contracts had promised. China’s decision showed that a collection service, an export market and a functioning recycling system are three different things. A bin can be emptied even when the collected material has no safe or viable destination.

The result was mixed

A study in Nature Communications modeled the environmental effects of changed plastic-waste flows. It found improvements in four impact measures after the ban, alongside an increase in modeled global-warming impact. Its estimated annual saving of about €2.35 billion in environmental costs depended on the model and the treatment methods used in each country [4]. That is a reason to look past the simple claim that closing a border either solved the problem or made it uniformly worse.

China continued to need usable secondary raw materials. The policy changed the kind of material it would accept and where sorting costs would fall. Exporters had to improve the quality of their feedstock, handle more waste domestically, or seek another buyer. Each response had different consequences for workers, municipalities and pollution.

The longer trend confirms that the global market changed. OECD data show plastic-waste exports fell from 15.58 million tonnes in 2014 to 6.04 million tonnes in 2023 [6]. That decline says little on its own about how much plastic was produced or safely treated. For that, we need to follow the material after collection, whether it crosses a border or stays at home.

National Sword’s enduring lesson lies in that distinction. A recycling system cannot end at the dock. If its success depends on another country accepting material that has not been sorted properly, the costs have been postponed and moved, not settled. China’s refusal forced exporters to see those costs again. The next test is whether they pay them themselves or leave another community to do so.

Sources

[1] World Trade Organization, China notification G/TBT/N/CHN/1211, 18 July 2017  Read source

[2] Wen and colleagues, China’s plastic import ban increases prospects of environmental impact mitigation, Nature Communications, 2021  Read source

[3] Brooks, Wang and Jambeck, The Chinese import ban and its impact on global plastic waste trade, Science Advances, 2018  Read source

[4] Wen and colleagues, Nature Communications, 2021  Read source

[5] OECD, Global Plastics Outlook, secondary plastics markets  Read source

[6] OECD, Monitoring trade in plastic waste and scrap, 2025  Read source