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China Refuses to Take New Zealand’s Waste – What Now?

China has officially declared its ban on imports of foreign waste. The decision was made due to China’s own domestic waste challenges, which have grown larger with its growing middle-class and consumers influenced by Westerners’ style of consumption. Every year, China has been importing more than 7 million tonnes of overseas plastic scrap for processing. Now, for New Zealand, this means we need to find a new way to deal with more than 30,000 tonnes of plastic annually.

A lot of the waste we sent to China were single-use plastic items such as plastic bags, coffee cups and nappies. Some of this waste was recycled, but some waste cannot be recycled, and most recyclable waste is simply not recycled. New Zealand is shamefully behind on responsible waste management, with a recent report published on Waste Management World showing New Zealand produces 3.68kg of urban waste per capita per day. This make us the worst in the developed world and the 10th worst of countries worldwide surveyed.

Producing waste may be inevitable, but we need to work on the amount we produce and how we dispose of that waste. Now that shipping waste offshore is not an option, we need to consider how much waste our own local landfills can handle. By being conscious, proactive consumers, we can practice more responsible waste management practices. Seemingly small actions such as using a reusable tote bag when buying groceries, or refusing a straw in a gin and tonic add up to make a lasting impact. New Zealand can, and must, work on waste management. 

Bins R Us provides bins for general rubbish and hard fill rubbish and dispose of it responsibly for you. To hire a bin in Auckland visit Bins R Us. They are experts in waste management, so you can hire rubbish removal bins and trust your waste will be disposed of the way it should be.