Essay on China's Green Sword Policy: 24 Recyclables Banned to Reduce Contamination

Introduction

Green Sword policy can be described as a ruling that was introduced in China to reduce contamination volumes of recyclable materials the country imports for processing. The system has burned 24 types of recyclable industries by ceasing their import licenses (Call, 2019). Household plastics and other waste paper recycling are the most important to Tasmanian recycling services. Those plastics banned include scrap polystyrene, scrap PET, and scrap polyethylene. Those paper and cardboard wastes that are imported must lower their contaminations levels of 0.5% now as compared to the previous 1.5% (Call, 2019).

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The current situation at Tasmanian remains to leave questionable concerns. For instance, are these recyclable going to change the recycling processes of the Tasmanian landfill? Should Tasmanian continue with recycling so that it can save energy and reduce resources? What impact has it brought to the kerbside recycling services and its cost? (Gregson & Crang, 2019). The local governments are also in discussions with the national government to see the financial support they can give to help the transition of recycling processing at minimum costs. However, how can Tasmanian communities help? It is a question that has raised concerns, especially for the purchase of an item and recyclable contents (Gregson & Crang, 2019). This research answers concerns arising from emerging situations for the policy that have impacted Tasmanian. It also highlights disturbances that affect the Green Sword policy project. Other stakeholders such as social justice, humanitarian, social-economic, national, regional, and global concerns have also involved the policy project as discussed below (Collins, 2019).

Disturbances that affect the project

After bottles, cans and papers are collected, they need to put them in a curb. But where does all this go after the trucks pick up everything? Every single day, more than 4, 000 shipping contains leave the United States ports ending to China. In return, China sends cloths and electronics products as some of America's largest exports are plastics and papers (Gregson & Crang, 2019). The Sword policy for China means a burn for at least 24 types of solid wastes due to fear of increased contamination levels in the country. The system comes about following Green Fence, a 10-month policy that was enacted five years ago (Gregson & Crang, 2019).

Several stressing factors have affected the project. Since China started the program in 2018, most of the other countries' are shutting down. China is importing most of its plastics, and therefore in the last two years, other materials for the nation's recycling processor are shutting down because China takes 75% of its businesses (Gregson & Crang, 2019). For the last 25 years, China has handles nearly half the world's recycled wastes. This has been the most significant concern for the rest of the world.

Secondly, contamination of natural materials and environments like soil has left China with another environmental problem. Major global shift concerns are now turned on how these plastic materials are tossed and handled (Gregson & Crang, 2019). For instance, glut concern is the primary concern whereby China imports mixed paper may be what has been dropped by the third parties. Those materials made of aluminum and glass considered having less effect on the environment.

Thirdly, the entire world plastics are now ending up in landfills or other incinerated places. This has raised costs to haul not only in China but also in other countries doing recycling for plastic materials. For instance, in England, as reported in 2019, more than 500,000 tons of plastics were burned as households' garbage (Ganim, 2020). The same scenario was seen in Australia, where the plastics recycling industry has faced a crisis with the country struggling to handle at least 1.2 million tons of stocks of recyclable waste. Recently this waste has been moved to China for recycling (Ganim, 2020).

Forth, scramble for markets with the local government and the national government unable to stop rivalry between existing companies and those companies entering the new market (Ganim, 2020). Many people within the country are just tossing plastics and papers as trash. Research had shown that before the Green Sword policy, only 9% of China's waste had been recycled. Only 12% of the destruction has been burned, but the rest has been put in landfills or has been dumped to be washed away by rivers and oceans (Ganim, 2020). The throughout culture has affected the environment massively with experts warning that if China did not have the Green Sword policy, the process plastics, packaging, and food containers would still pose a significant risk to the environment.

Finally, the recycling project could also pose another concern, as reported by experts. Even though it helps in better management of world waste, other countries are thinking of expanding the process capacities in their countries to reduce the cost of transportation. This has posed a threat to the Green Sword Chinese policy because possibilities will reduce Chinese income, and the economy for the country would be affected.

Key stakeholders for Green Sword Policy

Humanitarian

As per the report released by World Humanitarian Day in 2018, humanitarian aid workers are found in all countries of the world. The workers recognize the dedication required for them by helping the world to deal with wastes (Weiss, 2018). For China Green Sword Policy, humanitarian services have faced many challenges directly from environmental operations. Hazardous chemicals pose significant threats, especially for their long term health effects. The environment is always at risk for natural resources, an ecosystem like forest and wetland, because livelihood sustainability could have a devastating impact on these environments (Weiss, 2018). In China and some world countries, they have been able to address these issues and are helping to create a better and safer environment for all people. Most importantly, sanitation is encouraged by humanitarian efforts, whereby they promote the use of wooden material rather than plastics when facilitating cleaning (Weiss, 2018).

Social Justice

A policy can be equated to a regulation governing something. The China Green Sword Policy, therefore, is a regulation that aided in governing imports of solid wastes and raw material for plastics. The law would pose a positive impact on certain types of solid waste that should be imported to the country (UNIDO, 2019). Therefore this would mean China would not receive shipments that are mixed with trash, low-quality recycling materials, nor the wrong type of recyclable materials.

Social-economic

Green Sword policy means China will cut shipments of trash and other plastics recyclable materials, meaning it will have reduced revenues. As reported by Weiss (2018), China is the leading market in the importation of processing of recyclable waste with more than 30million tones around the world every year. Even though the policy restrictions would improve on national environmental standards, it will have high costs for many countries. China Tasmanian will be losing at least $500 million annually (Weiss, 2018).

There arises another issue of how additional recyclable plastics waste will be handled now with the restrictions in importation. Over the last year, the Green Sword policy economic effect has been felt by other world countries and majorly Australia and the United States (Sun et al., 2019). Other existing firms are collapsing because they are unable to make the maximum profit to sustain their continued existence.

Recycling and processing facilities are quickly reaching their capacity because most of the wastes are buried in the land. Australian recycling is heavily feeling the pinch due to the policy. NSW government has spent $47 million in assisting its local governments and the processing industry. Further, the SA government has also provided $300,000 in granting funds secondary processing infrastructure (Sun et al., 2019). Although the policy has economically affected other countries negatively, they are still struggling to ensure their plastic wastes are well disposed of if not recycled.

National, Regional and Global

Whether China leads in the ban not only in the country but also the products and wastes entering the country, the risk of environmental pollution remains to be seen. China's development infrastructure has been developed as a result of these companies (Lee & Krieger, 2018). For Tasmanian, it has become easy to cut costs with the technique of ensuring efficient management of plastics.

Countries with proper management of their wastes products would not bother China's concerns. Bordering countries such as Australia should seek an ultimate solution to their plastics waste (Lee & Krieger, 2018). However, the production and recycling of these could be completely being banned to give rise to new technologies that could environmentally take care of all risks.

Globally, some of the options that could be adopted have recently emerged in the United States. A choice that has been to take charge is the recovery facilities for expanding plastics processing. This could be achieved by upgrading the equipment, adding more humanitarian workers, and reducing the level of contamination for materials (Lee & Krieger, 2018). The United States has planned to open up processing plants in South Carolina and Alabama, where food containers for making plastics products could be placed.

Economic Factors affecting Green Sword Policy

Recycling is an essential lynchpin for the circular economy and plays a critical role in turning consumer material into valuable substances. Not only environmental and social opportunities but also recycling numerous economic value chains. To begin with, greening the environment is one way of strengthening industries (Ganim, 2020). The industries can assume the overall roles of a circular economy where the concept will accommodate particular needs addressing concrete wastes problems. To enhance the recycling industries, it requires firms to go beyond sectorial levels whereby the firms have to create the right market incentives. The incentives will, therefore, balance supply and demand as the industry produce and sell.

Secondly, effectively supply and logistics chains must cheap in by incorporate between processing industries the governments (Schulz, 2019). The government must first support circular economy strategies, which are the intervention border for managing global waste products. Thirdly, the quality of products produced is likely to increase because the Green Sword policy focuses on making sure the processed and recycled material strain meets the required abilities (Schulz, 2019). Forth, it helps repairs the vibrant and refurbishment sectors of the economy. Personal developments and professionalism could further be enriched in the potential recycling field.

The local community mostly benefits through recycling because the process of recycling aims at refining, quarrying, and extracting raw materials to create substantial air, water, and environmental protection generally (Schulz, 2019). Human beings in the local community usually interact with the environment every day. The church is likely to benefit primarily, mostly because of recycling aids in saving energy, reducing gas emission, and helping tackle the issue of climatic change (Schulz, 2019).

Generally, China will continue benefiting socially, economically, and environmentally. With the country maintaining 100% recycling, water, soils, and the environment would be suitable for human survival. China's development infr...