World

Recycling Market in China Shattered, Glass Bottles Turned Away

by weirdchina | January 26, 2009 at 10:21 am

949 views | 9 Recommendations | 11 comments

China has been one of the largest importers of waste material. But as the world economy has slowed, there has been a severe drop in demand. Biz Journal quoted Brian Scaffer of Blue Mountain Recycling, located in Philadelphia, as saying the values of recyclables had fallen 80 percent in a four-week period last fall.

Millions of poor people in China make a living sifting through the garbage, pulling out anything of value, then selling their wares to a middle man, really just living a meager existence with the small pocket change earned (that is now even smaller). Wu Wenxiu, a recycle-man interviewed by the Tapai Times was upset to learn, his wholesale buyer would only pay him 1 RMB ($0.15) for two pounds of plastic.

While walking around in Shandong Province, China, I found evidence of a slowing waste market. In the video that accompanies this story, you will see a large pile of glass bottles, abandoned after being pulled and separated from the garbage for recycling. Before the drop in demand this glass would of been worth a lot of money and more importantly these used bottles would have been recycled into new products.

Sources:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/01/12/2003433521

http://cbs3.com/greenscene/Green.Scene.Recycling.2.774487.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/09/recycling-global-recession-china

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Paschen

at 13:22 on January 26th, 2009

Do you have a link for that news?

beejorn

at 13:26 on January 26th, 2009

When you travel from Europe to China it is almost like travelling back in time. You see how far you have gone in handling vaste both on foot and on wheels. In all part of the world we need to recycle more but as we also can see others need our help to learn. This person was cleaning the streets of China and the streest were clean. Next thing would be to sort out what would be possible to recycle

beejorn has contributed a photo to this story.

weirdchina

at 14:15 on January 26th, 2009

Does anyone have ideas on what can be done about the glass bottles shown in the video? Any potential solutions, unique or creative ideas?

Sanjay Jha

at 19:01 on January 26th, 2009

Thanks very much for your post and links. Why don't you use Nowpublic Highlight tool to link the external news source. It is very good post.

weirdchina

at 21:02 on January 26th, 2009

Hi Sanjay, thanks for the tip about using the highlight tool, I will use it in my future reports to link to any external news sources.

158

at 19:04 on January 26th, 2009

Good report

weirdchina

at 21:40 on January 26th, 2009

Hi 158, thanks viewing my report and for your comment!

Bjoern Walter (not verified)

at 00:00 on January 27th, 2009

China is increasing the level of recycling step by step. Mainly based on small private companies but now you can find also separated trashbins for recycleable and non recycleable material all over the place in the big city's.

weirdchina

at 05:51 on January 27th, 2009

The Chinese are encouraged to recycle. The recycle men/women pick through the garbage, pulling out the aluminum cans, paper, cardboard, but they don't want the glass anymore.

Chad Reeves (not verified)

at 20:23 on February 5th, 2009

I have the perfect solution for all the waste glass in China. It is a 100% recycle program that has no side-effects on the environment that can benefit all local and provincial governments!