Essay Sample on Impact of the Foreign Waste Ban

There arises a need to understand and to appreciate the policy failure in nature to improve policy support first. Policy failure can get defined as a reason why things go the way they do not get supposed to be logically. Failure resides when success ends, which is characterized by an absolute non-achievement. A few decades, china's economy was associated with importing waste. Some of the reasons why China was importing waste products is that they had cheap labor, which refashioned the scrap plastic in manufacturing different items such as hoses, phones, and sandals. Another reason is that the importing arrangement was mutually beneficial. Waste plastic products from oversees were of high quality that was domestically available, where countries like the united states and the united kingdom found it cheaper, sending their trash abroad than sorting through it at home. International businesses were opened, which created job opportunities. At the end of 2017, China announced that there were essential quality control changes that get situated on the materials that get imported. This was a notice to the World Trade Organization that they got expected to ban 24 categories of imports of solid wastes and recyclables. This policy of banning imported waste in china sets new levels of impurities in the other recyclables. Also, the banning action was protecting china's environment and improving public health. This is because large amounts of wastes were hazardous since it got mixed with solid waste that got used as raw materials which seriously polluted china's environment. There were complains too from the Chinese officials that much of recyclable materials that got imported from overseas to the country was a mixture of non-recyclable material or had not gotten appropriately cleaned. China also had started producing less and good, better, and high quality. The manufacturers produced environmentally harmful products where the buck was passed to retailers later to the local councils. Therefore, there are significant negative consequences in china after the policy got implemented.

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Early in July 2018, China made changes in waste from being imported to their country regarding health and environmental issues (Lee, 2018). The restrictions of recycling materials, which were banned by China, eventually force the industries to use raw materials. Using recycling materials in the process of producing the same products uses less energy and saves materials, which is not presumably good news to the environment. There are three significant negative consequences in china after implementing the policy of banning foreign garbage in china. One of the results is that there is a rise in the price of high raw materials. The cost of plastic raw materials, papers, and metals have rapidly risen after the foreign garbage ban. With the rise in the price of raw materials, Chinese suppliers have also increased the cost of their products. The Chinese market of raw materials is undergoing a significant price instability, including coal, copper, natural rubber, chemicals, and other raw materials. The reasons for the price are rice are the fuel price rise, the chemicals price rise, and the rise in transport cost. The Chinese government demanded to shrink the production of coal to 16% to relieve air pollution in 2016, not knowing the challenge the country would face (Lee, 2018). Through the government's hard work, a good number of illegal miners got closed down, which was the main supply of coal in china. This made the production decline nearly to 36%, which was the root of the price explosion of coal. In China, fuel is an essential source of energy. Therefore, the coal price rise has inevitably led to high-cost metal smelting and electricity, which eventually extends to aluminum steel and any other materials, which are not ready-made. There is a substantial price rise of the essential chemicals because of insufficient capacity. For example, TDI is used in the furniture and decoration industry in which its supply is primarily monopolized by companies that are outside of china because of technical barriers. TDI supply has, therefore, begun to contract all over the worldwide, which has negatively affected the Chinese market due to the tripled price rise. The strict rule on the national highway freight transport vehicles implemented in September 2016 limits the transportation of raw materials hence making the cost high. Another cynical challenge of the foreign waste ban is that large numbers of workers who worked on the industries who imported foreign waste have lost their jobs. Also, many companies have been closed down as a result of the lack of enough raw materials from waste plastic. The price of raw materials has risen from the policy of foreign waste ban policy, which is a result of a lack of raw materials. Some of the other reasons why companies got closed is the imposition of 10% tariffs on Chinese imports such as footwear, electronics, and other consumer goods by President Donald Trump. The new tariffs triggered the closure of many stores forcing some retailers to raise the price of their products (Lee, 2018). The closing of the companies hurts everybody where many workers lose their jobs and get left with for their upkeep. The third negative consequence is that there is a massive shortage of waste plastics. China's ban on the importation of plastic recycling has caused waste accumulation around the world. This brought out panic on the global powers were in total china was importing 580000 tons of recyclable plastic, which reduced to 23000 tons around February 2018. However, this policy has led to a cynical challenge in china where some factories have a problem since they need renewable plastic granules so that they can produce some products. An example of companies that are facing these challenges is the Xingke Chemical Fiber Company, which gets located in china. The chemical fiber plant uses fragments of recycled plastic water bottles to produce plotter yarns for their customers. In a year, the company uses 70000 tons of waste plastic, in which half of it is imported (Becerra, 2019). When the policy of banning waste plastic got introduced in 2017, the company's raw materials have decreased by half, which means that there must be an increase in the purchase of domestic waste plastics. This is because the Chinese recycling system has not changed much due to the slow growth rate of the market, filling up the millions of tons that got imported.

There is a negative impact on the international from the foreign waste ban policy. The policy has led to a surge in the solid wastes imports in countries like Southeast Asia. It has also left the developing nations in a struggle of where to find a place they can import their waste. According to the director-general of Brussels, Arnaud Brunet, who gets based on the industry group, says that it is like an earthquake, in which China has created a significant shock in the market globally (Reignard, 2017). The plastics have gotten redirected to less developing countries such as Southeast Asia, where some of the Chinese recyclers have shifted to. Globally since the policy got introduced, more plastics are ending to incinerators, landfills, or they are just likely to litter in the environment where there is pollution. Some of the countries like England burned down a million tons of plastics and other household garbage. This led to air pollution from the harmful smoke of plastic burns. The substantial plastic waste has gotten dumped in an open-air where trash has accumulated hence destroying the environment. There is a limited processing capacity in these countries, which has caused environmental pollution in these countries. Some plastic wastes also gets dumped in the ocean and the seas, which bring about water pollution.

With all these negative challenges which have developed since china introduced foreign waste ban policy, china should correctly import plastic waste. This will increase the raw materials in the companies decreasing the price of raw materials. Also, companies such as Xingke Chemical Fiber Company will have benefited from the importation since it depends on the recycled plastic waste. Many people will also get back to work, and job opportunities will get created. Developed regions such as the United States of America should get established with the production and processing base for the recycled plastics in other counties. This will help reduce the accumulation of plastic wastes where there will be public awareness on how to take immediate measures regarding plastic consumption. The plastic waste exporting countries should upscale and establish domestic recycling of their chemical wastes. This is to combat the plastic pollution worldwide, and the private sectors are encouraged to design their products, pack and their delivery systems that prohibit the use of single-use of the plastic products.

In conclusion, policies that get implemented in certain countries can fail if many negative challenges are many than positive changes. The foreign waste ban policy, which got implemented in China in July 2018, abandoned. Even if there were achievements such as promoting health and environment issues, there were also negative challenges that got experienced. Some of them include the price rise of raw materials to be used in the industry. Many workers lost their job opportunities due to the lack of enough materials where, also, some companies were closed down. Lastly, there was a considerable shortage of raw material to get used in the industry. The policy did not only affect china as a country but also affected other countries internationally. Some of the developing countries such as Southeast Asia were affected since all the plastic wastes got redirected there. There was an accumulation of so many chemical wastes in which it changed the environment at large. Therefore, China should import more plastic waste as they used to do there before the policy got implemented. This would help the companies which have closed down to be back to work and the jobless people to get jobs. The developing nations such as the United States of America should get established with the production and processing base for the recycled plastics in other counties. This will create public awareness and help different companies to produce products that can be recycled and not single used.

References

Becerra, E. (2019). The world's recycling is in chaos. Here's what has to happen. Retrieved from. https://www.wired.com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/the-worlds-recycling-is-in-chaos-heres-what-has-to-happen/amp?

Lee, Y., N. (2018). The world is scrambling now that China is refusing to be a trash dumping ground. Retrieved from. https://www.cnbc.com.climate-change-chinabans-import-of-foreign-waste-to-stop-pollution.

Reignard, M. (2017). Raw materials sharp price increase for your Chinese suppliers. Retrieved from. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/raw-materials-sharp-price-increase-china-suppliers-mathiey-reignard