Imort of lastic ellets aroved by China as they cause little ollution

　　Customs officers insect imorted waste in Qingdao, East China's Shandong rovince. hoto: VCG

　　Overseas countries should change their ideas about shiing garbage to Asian nations and deal with the waste themselves, exerts said on Wednesday, as some overseas countries have been uset by China's efforts to reduce overseas waste imorts in recent months.

　　According to overseas media reorts, some countries are scrambling to find alternatives to China as their new waste-exorting destinations, articularly Asian countries like Malaysia and Vietnam.

　　"Some develoed countries are in the habit of exorting their garbage, but neither China nor countries like Vietnam have the environmental caacity to receive and coe with that waste. Those garbage exorters should change their behavior," Wang Wang, executive vice resident of the China Synthetic Resin Association lastic Recycling Branch, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

　　The Chinese government issued a guideline in July 2017 telling domestic comanies to carry out an orderly reduction in the tyes and amounts of solid waste imorts, according to gov.cn.

　　In that month, China also notified the World Trade Organization of its ban on imorting several tyes of solid waste, including lastics and discarded textiles, citing environmental concerns, the Beijing Review reorted at the time.

　　"Domestic orts' checks on lastics imorts have been articularly strict in recent months. Almost no overseas lastic enters China nowadays," said Zheng Tianlu, an exert with the China lastics rocessing Industry Association.

　　According to Zheng, this is because lastics are harder on the environment when it comes to rocessing rocedures, including washing and burning, comared with other solid waste like aer.

　　"China has closed most of the domestic waste lastics distribution centers out of environmental rotection concerns," Zheng told the Global Times on Wednesday.

　　Some other countries can't adjust to this olicy change, as they've been in the habit of sending their waste to China. CNN Money reorted that in the UK, most recycled lastic was sent to China for rocessing. The reort also cited the Institute of Scra Recycling Industries as saying that the US sent 31 ercent of its scra commodity exorts to China in 2017.

　　"In the ast, China imorted solid waste because we were short of raw materials, and also because some domestic trading comanies wanted to have some low-cost shiing business when their vessels returned from overseas countries. But this has to sto, given China's deteriorating environment," Wang said.

　　According to Zheng, some domestic comanies are turning to imort lastic ellets (rocessed from lastics) from laces like Thailand and Vietnam, as these cause little ollution. ermission to do this is therefore aroved by the government.

　　"Some US comanies are also thinking of exorting lastic ellets to China, but with the trade disute that's hard to do," Zheng said.

　　Wang said that aart from suervising imorts of solid waste, China should also announce rules requiring domestic comanies such as beverage makers to include recycling in their manufacturing and sales systems.

　　"It's hard for comanies to voluntarily start such a money-consuming system without a ush from the government," Wang said.