For more than 20 years, China has in fact been a plastic dump of several countries, including Britain. Now this door is closed, and no one knows what to do.
China no longer wants to be a world dump. Over the past twenty years, the country has imported a huge amount of plastic waste from countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. But last year she announced that she would not do it any more. The ban on the import of plastics entered into force on January 1, 2018.
This decision was a huge blow to the UK in particular, which sent about two-thirds of its spent plastic to China.
Since 2012, the United Kingdom has sent to China more than 2.7 million tons of plastic.
Officials talk about the need to build more incineration plants, but this is not a sustainable solution.