Attention, please

When recyclables are collected in a commingled fashion, it can increase the total volume of material collected but also means that, at some point, effort will have to be placed into sorting out what has been mixed together.

For much of this century, recovered fiber buyers in China have been willing to do much of the sorting by grade or color after taking delivery of mixed paper shipments. Likewise, many players in the plastic scrap market in China have shown a willingness to accept commingled loads and engage in sorting there.

Prompted in part by a documentary movie called “Plastic China,” which portrays unsanitary and environmentally questionable work conditions at some plastic sorting facilities and has reportedly been viewed by China’s President Xi Jinping, China’s government has acted swiftly throughout 2017 to change the way it accepts overseas shipments of recyclable materials.

Many types of plastic scrap shipments have already been prohibited, and China has subsequently petitioned the World Trade Organization (WTO) for permission to prohibit other types of plastic, paper and metal scrap from entering the country by the end of 2017 or later.

For recyclers, this is creating another wave of research and investment into automated sorting technology, following on the heels of China’s “Green Fence” initiative in 2013.

Timelines and definitions

The first quarter of 2017 brought with it a Chinese government initiative called “National Sword,” a multiagency effort to greatly increase the inspection of inbound ocean freight containers with scrap materials.

It quickly became apparent to plastics recyclers—and shippers of plastic scrap from overseas—that the material in which they traded was receiving special scrutiny.

By April 2017, the Beijing-based China Scrap Plastic Association (CSPA) was reporting that some 5,000 sea containers loaded with plastic scrap would have to be auctioned off from Hong Kong. The containers from all over the world had not been able to enter the People’s Republic of China since it began its National Sword regimen.

The CSPA said China Customs, in many cases, “has not ascertained whether many types of these goods can be allowed to enter, and some of them are surely prohibited from entering into China’s mainland.” Further adding to the delays, CSPA reported, “China Customs has been scrutinizing licenses for plastic scrap in case the licenses are borrowed or sold illegally.”

National Sword, as did Green Fence before it, caused recyclers in Europe, North America and the rest of the world to respond in a number of ways, including: 1) paying closer attention to current quality control measures; 2) exploring options regarding where to ship material other than China; and 3) researching to what extent additional investments in sorting and quality control could protect their sales channels.

As 2017 entered its third quarter, not only did National Sword continue, but China’s government agencies, led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), conducted inspections throughout the month of July on more than 1,500 recycling facilities.

By late July the MEP had reported that more than 950 companies, or 61 percent of those inspected, had been “cited for proposed punishment.” Companies cited included those who processed plastic, paper and metal scrap. The CSPA has indicated in August that many of the facilities with violations would be unable to apply for a new import license within the next one or two years.

Going forward things seem unlikely to change, with China’s government also in July petitioning the WTO to ban the import of more than 20 types of plastic, paper and metal scrap. Recyclers throughout China began visiting nearby countries to explore relocating their import and sorting operations.

The MEP, in a July 28 announcement on its website (in Chinese), says among the items it will ban are post-consumer plastic scrap and unsorted paper “by the end of 2017.” In a nod to the role of secondary commodities in the Chinese economy—and perhaps to the role of protectionism in the new policy—the MEP writes, “Since the 1980s, in order to alleviate the shortage of raw materials, China began importing secondary raw materials from abroad,” and, “By the end of 2019, the gradual reduction of imports [means] domestic resources can replace the imported scrap materials.”

Paper recyclers who ship to China in 2018 and beyond will soon need greater clarity on what constitutes unsorted paper, and to what extent any mixed paper is considered “unsorted” by the Chinese government. The ISRI (Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries) 2016 specifications for exported paper grades include three in the mixed paper category.

The hard mixed paper (HMP) grade specification refers to it being sorted and consisting of “less than 10 percent groundwood content.” The soft mixed paper grade spec also uses the word “sorted,” but says it is “not limited as to type of fiber content.” The residential mixed paper grade spec makes no mention of sorting, and says the grade consists of paper “not limited as to type of fiber content.”

As the end of 2017 nears, many paper and plastic scrap consumers in China, as well as overseas suppliers in North America, Europe and the rest of the world, are uncertain as to how material flows will change when the calendar flips to 2018.

Knowledge is power

As it has in the past, the fast moving but sometimes opaque nature of China’s government has caused recyclers to scramble for the latest (and ideally most accurate) market information.

Conferences and events held by recycling organizations throughout the world, including the Bureau of International Recycling’s Round-Table event in Delhi, India, in October 2017, and the RISI Recycled Fiber and Containerboard Conferences in Chengdu, China, in December 2017, can allow recyclers to become better informed.

The Recycling Today Media Group is holding three events geared toward plastic and paper recyclers in the fall of 2017, with each of them including programming relative to fast-moving events in China.

Europe-based recyclers will meet in Warsaw, Poland, Nov. 7-8 for the 2017 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Europe event.

The opening two sessions of the conference will address restrictions in China and opportunities in Southeast Asia and India. Speakers at these two sessions will include:

• Steve Wong of the CSPA, the BIR and Hong Kong-based Fukutomi Co. Ltd.;
• Craig Robinson of Cycle Link UK, United Kingdom;
• Shailesh Ghotal of Belgium-based Gemini Corporation;
• Hrishikesh Vora of Mumbai-based Victory Creations and Paper Works; and
• Michael McManus of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper.

Other topics covered in the event’s program, designed to cater to European paper and plastics recyclers, include aggressive recycling targets in the European Union; recycling opportunities in Eastern and Central Europe; and a look at the ocean-going freight sector in the midst of another year of changes and adjustments.

A session focused exclusively on upgrading material quality will include presentations from one or more suppliers of automated sorting equipment and one from the Poland-based maker of Bin-e products, which are designed to sort office or public space recyclables within their collection bin.

About three weeks before the Warsaw event, recyclers in North America and around the world will gather in Chicago for the 18th annual Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference (PPRC). The event is scheduled for Oct. 11-13 in Chicago at the Marriott Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile and is produced in partnership with the Paper Stock Industries (PSI) Chapter of ISRI and with the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS).

The Chicago conference includes a keynote session on the future of recycling; one focusing on “the processing plant of the future,” examining new and evolving technologies; a session on ocean freight and sea ports; and a look at the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region and recycling opportunities there.

During the two days before the PPRC, the same Chicago hotel will host the MRF & Recycling Plant Operations Forum in cooperation with MRF design-build firm RRT Design and Construction. The two-day event will focus on equipping and retrofitting MRFs, with topics including what’s new in fiber sorting, safety, and collecting and analyzing data at a MRF.

In a calendar year when new regulations in China are greatly affecting the future handling of commingled recyclables, all three events have been designed to address that increasingly critical topic.