China's Green Fence

China’s Green Fence

What is China’s Green Fence and how does it impact you?

 

As the U.S. became a consumer economy with a shrinking manufacturing base, Chinese manufacturing was growing. The U.S. generates more scrap than it is able to consume domestically. Meanwhile Chinese demand for raw materials grew and recyclables are a lower cost raw material compared to virgin raw materials.

 

          The United States has been exporting its raw materials such as metal, paper, plastic and more, instead of recycling the materials here in the U.S. While this is good for the trade deficit with China – scrap is our largest export to that country – the quality of recyclables is becoming a problem. China is implementing higher standards on imports of recycled material via Operation Green Fence. This could have quite an impact on the recycling industry and the U.S. in a broader context, forcing the U.S. to have higher standards for what they export worldwide.

 

          One reason the United States began exporting to China is because, as a result of the large amount of goods we import from them, the shipping containers that carried those goods were being sent back to the country empty. It made sense to send them back filled with bales of empty cardboard boxes which those goods had been packed in because China does not have the forest resources that the U.S. does. Most of China’s packaging was previously made from recycled fibers which proved quite flimsy. China wanted to import our high quality cardboard to mix in with their low quality fibers to make better packaging. This win-win situation began the exporting of our recyclables.

 

          Beginning in February of 2013 China launched what they’re calling “Operation Green Fence“, a 10-month long initiative that kicked off in February to prevent the importation of solid waste-contaminated shipments. Operation Green Fence has set a limit of 1.5 percent prohibitive, or allowable contaminant, in each bale, in an effort to keep trash out of China. Headed by Wang Jiwei, vice president and secretary-general of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metal Branch (CMRA), the new initiative will include random inspection of all forms of “imported waste,” meaning metal, plastic, textiles, rubber and recovered paper materials.

         

Therefore all recyclable material must be separated thoroughly before being placed into the recycling bin. Food waste left on a container can contaminate the whole bin. To maximize your recycling efforts it is important to make sure that no food waste gets into the recycling receptacle.