According to Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsrecyclers.eu), China's restrictions on plastics waste imports have been "creating turmoil on the plastic waste markets." Europe’s waste management systems have been supporting the treatment of low-quality plastics waste in China for many years now.

About the markets, PRE president Ton Emans says they are oversupplied with low-quality plastics waste due to China’s import restrictions. "These low qualities used to be exported as a cheap end-of-life solution for badly collected and sorted waste," says Emans. "This unfair practice, in terms of economic, social and environmental implications, is at the edge of the legal requirements imposed by the Waste Directives. As a matter of fact, exporters should have demonstrated that the exported waste is treated according to the EU standards."

The plastics waste surplus cannot be absorbed in the EU now, as it does not meet European recyclers' quality requirements. This abrupt change in market conditions highlights an urgent need to implement a sustainable waste market in Europe, which the association emphasises can only be done by increasing the quality of waste. Emans notes a lack of vision in the value chain that results in the EU being unable to quickly deal with these new increased quantities. Industry, policy makers and society must work on a solution that allows immediate implementation of enhanced product design for recycling, harmonised collection and investments in efficient sorting centres.

Across the Atlantic, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (Isri, Washington, D.C. / USA; www.isri.org) is in continual communication with the US and Chinese governments as part of an effort to protect the interests of the recycling industry. It sees the restrictions by China as effectively a ban on waste imports – see Plasteurope.com of 21.09.2017.