Many of China’s plastic recyclers move their factories outside of the country after China raised their standard of accepted recyclables. One company, Taicang Jinhui Recycling Co, still operates in the country, but they have also begun to open more factories and moving most of their capacity to other countries such as Malaysia. Earlier in 2018, China placed a restriction of “foreign trash” and banned many imported recyclables. They hoped it would boost their economy and be a solution to the growing volumes of its own trash that is clogging rivers or sitting untreated in landfills. Jinhui Recycling takes plastic scrap and turns it into pellets which then are used in numerous ways such office furniture and fiber-optic cable sheathes. 

The ban has led to a decrease of about half of what many recycling factories are used to receiving, thus they can no longer produce enough goods to meet the need. Many companies have stopped producing the plastic pallets and have turned to just warehousing, or they have just disappeared completely. Since the ban, Jinhui Recycling has been one of the remaining recyclers in the country, but they have also laid off 250 workers. However, their plant in Malaysia has recently hired 600 workers with most of its equipment and technology Chinese-based.

Over 1,000 recycling enterprises have moved their company elsewhere in mostly Southeast Asia. The same issues that troubled China and the reasons why China decided to enforce the ban will plague Southeast Asia. China’s biggest importers before the ban was Europe and the United States. Now those countries will more than likely begin to sale their recyclables to the Southeast Asian countries.

The China Scrap Plastic Association (CSPA) predicted that these countries will not be able to fill the six to eight million ton plastic void that the China ban has created. The hopes that recycle plants would address China’s domestic waste has been progressing slowly. CSPA figures state only about five percent of plants have been able to switch to local sources of scrap. The ban came with no warning and companies were not given enough time for the change, nor has China devised plans to scale up and standardize treatment of domestic waste. Customs have also increased their security again illegal low-grade waste, thus has delayed shipments in all of Asia including the countries where recyclable plants move to. No one wants a pile up of foreign trash on their lands, and Jinhui Recycling predicts restrictions will only become stricter in the future.