And the real truth is ??? and Hong Kong Government official recycling figures are correct and truthful and the waste industry import/export statistics are included as ‘local recycling’ ?

Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)

Home > Officials dispute dumping claims

Officials dispute dumping claims

Saturday, 27 July, 2013, 12:00am

News›Hong Kong

ENVIRONMENT

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Recyclers say much plastic waste ends up here. Photo: Edward Wong

Ada Lee ada.lee@scmp.com

Reliable figures on how much imported plastic waste ends up in local landfills prove hard to find as recyclers press for licensing system

Recyclers and the government remained divided yesterday over the amount of foreign plastic waste dumped in local landfills, with the Environmental Protection Department saying the industry’s estimate of 300,000 tonnes a year was impossible.

David Wong Tak-wai, an assistant director of the department, said that much waste would require 200 trucks a day to take it to landfills. It would be impossible, he said, as the government monitored waste going to landfills closely and that number would mean the city generated very little plastic waste of its own.

We will see if the current formula for calculating the amount of recycled waste is still valid and how much waste has been declared as local even though its origin was overseas

EPD assistant director Dr Ellen Chan Ying-lung

Groups representing the recycling industry also wanted the government to establish a licensing system, so the operations of recycling companies could be better monitored and the city could have a better idea of how rubbish imported from overseas was processed.

Chan Sik-kwan, chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Recycle, said some low-quality imported waste was mixed with non-recyclable material, and that 8 to 10 per cent of the 3 million tonnes of that waste processed in the city was going into landfills.

Environment minister Wong Kam-sing said the industry’s estimate was only approximate.

He added that the overall amount of waste exported, including metal, paper and plastic, was more than that imported.

He was responding to claims that the amount of plastic waste exported was less that that imported, and that therefore some of it was going into local landfills.

Department assistant director Dr Ellen Chan Ying-lung said that if it was mixed with other domestic waste, it would be difficult to identify.

She said the government had found the recorded export rate of plastic waste had fluctuated wildly in recent years, and so it had commissioned a consultant to examine the figures.

“We will see if the current formula for calculating the amount of recycled waste is still valid and how much waste has been declared as local even though its origin was overseas,” she said.

The federation also called for a study of licensing recyclers.

Chan Sik-kwan said some recyclers might say the non-recyclable portion of foreign plastic waste was local waste as it was processed in the city. He said some recyclers did not meet standards in terms of both safety and quality, and urged the government to study the possibility of a licensing scheme.

Dr Jacky Lau yiu-shing, president of Recycle Materials and Re-production Business General Association, also said licensing was necessary so controls on imported rubbish could be enforced more easily.

Democratic Party lawmaker Dr Helena Wong Pik-wan said Hong Kong should not allow imports of low-quality plastic waste if the mainland had also stopped accepting it, referring to a recent mainland decision to ban imports of poor-quality waste.

That had resulted in 189 containers of low-quality waste being returned to Hong Kong, according to the Environment Bureau.

What has happened to the plastic waste imported here with the intent to on-forward it to China but which is now blocked from import into China due to GREEN FENCE ?

Has it been re-exported back to the originating sources ? If not, what has happened to that imported plastic waste ?

We note that 99% of all recyclables are seemingly exported from here to the demise of the local recycling industry.

Kind regards

James Middleton

Chairman

www.cleartheair.org.hk

http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/elocal/news.htm?elocal&20130727&56&938171

by Paul Sanderson http://www.scrap-ex.com/news/plastic/hong_kong_struggling_plastic_waste_mountain_following_green_fence.html

Thousands of tonnes of plastic from Hong Kong that would traditionally have been recycled in China has been blocked due to the green fence.

As a result, Hong Kong is having to landfill plastic and this is also providing confirmation that Hong Kong as a traditional backdoor route into China for plastics recycling has been closed off.

The Federation of Hong Kong Recycle has said that its members have been unable to send 10,000 tonnes of plastic to the mainland for recycling, and instead this material has been stored in warehouses. However, with space running out, recyclers in China are now having to send the material to landfill.

Federation chairman Chan Sik-kwan told the South China Morning Post that local firms only had limited resources to wash, shred and categorise material to Chinese import standards.

He warned that more help would be needed from the Hong Kong government or recycling companies would be forced to close. He hoped that the government would be able to negotiate with the mainland government to relax the rules.

Recycled Plastics Market Set to Triple, but China’s ‘Green Fence’ Hampering Exports

4 June 2013

By Ben Messenger
Managing Editor

http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/2013/06/recycled-plastics-market-set-to-triple–but-chinas–green-fence-.html

The global demand for recovered plastics will triple over the next eight years, but China’s ‘Green Fence’ policy of import restrictions of scrap plastics is leading to oversupply in the U.S. market.

Speaking at the recent BIR (Bureau of International Recycling) World Recycling Convention & Exhibition in Shanghai, the BIR Plastics Committee chairman, Surendra Borad highlighted figures from industry consultant Poyry, which suggest that annual global consumption will leap from 15 million tonnes in 2007 to 45 million tonnes by 2015. According to Poyry’s forecast, that number could rise to as much as 85 million tonnes per year by 2020. Borad explained that these figures are backed up by a projection from CBI China that Chinese demand for recovered plastics could top 29 million tonnes by 2015, and that China (including Hong Kong) currently imports 8 – 9 million tonnes of plastics scrap each year, while domestic collection was around 13 million tonnes. On the issue of international movements of material Borad confirmed that he had recently urged the European Commission to make a clearer distinction between “illegal shipments” and “shipments in violation of the EU regulation”. According to the committee chairman those in the latter category “may be due to missing papers or incomplete or inaccurate paperwork or administrative mistakes”. The volume of illegal shipments from Europe “may not be as much as it is perceived to be”, he argued.

Green Fence

by Paul Sanderson

Since the introduction of the Operation Green Fence crackdown on imports of illegal solid waste, 383 containers of waste have been seized by Chinese customs officials.

http://news.newclear.server279.com/?p=6977

EPD clarifies media reports on arrangements for waste plastic disposal

Jul 17th, 2013

by Editor.

http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201306/27/P201306270607_print.htm

The document points out that waste plastics imported from other places are not allowed to be disposed of in Hong Kong and the EPD will require the recyclers or importers to return such waste to its place of origin. As for local recyclables that have been seriously contaminated and are not suitable for recycling, recyclers can contact the EPD to arrange the disposal of such waste at landfills or refuse transfer stations after inspection by the EPD. If the waste plastics are found to be suitable for recycling, the EPD will follow up with the recyclers and provide assistance in recycling the materials.

http://www.waste-recyclingme.ae/cover-story.php?CSID=36

Issue # 3, Vol: 3

Cover Story: Green Fence for better quality control

By Swaliha Shanavas

The Green Fence initiative of China which was launched in February 2013 with the aim of filtering out substandard and hazardous scrap material entering the country has impacted businesses worldwide, at least in the short term. The regulation is being enforced by rigorous container inspections, with a lot of material being rejected, and the action has led to difficulty in shipping mixed loads, customs clearance delays at ports, slower inbound movements, re-packaging of material and diversion to other ports, with its effect being felt in various countries including the US and Europe.

Operation Green Fence was one of the significant topics touched upon by many speakers at the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) 2013 World Recycling Convention in Shanghai, with a great deal of emphasis placed on it at the Plastics Committee meeting. “A butterfly in China is creating a tornado in Europe,” stated Surendra Borad, Plastics Committee Chairman and chairman of Gemini Corporation.

Steve Wong, managing director of Fukutomi Company Ltd., said the Green Fence action is mainly to defend “the living environment” of China against pollution. He underlined the implications of the action on the recycling industry. “Post production plastic waste will soon become the major type of plastic waste to be imported… At the same time, traders who rely much on trading of plastic waste will naturally be eliminated from the business. Only those recyclers who also involve producing finished products for export can survive.” Another consequence could be overseas suppliers seeking alternative markets he said. “In order to survive, overseas suppliers have started recycling and processing their post-consumer waste into recycled raw materials locally.”

Guest speaker Renwu Cai, general manager of Guangzhou GISE-MBA New Plastics Technology said the Green Fence operation was to “crack down on illegal enterprises and standardise the industry” but acknowledged that this brought about customs clearance delays, resulting in additional costs to even the law-abiding enterprises.

Gregory Cardot of Veolia Propreté pointed out that Green Fence is only a strict application of a Chinese regulation of 2010 concerning the importation of waste in China. “Consequently, all plastics mixed with more than 2% of contamination are no more welcome in China.” He stressed that this is an opportunity for all to improve the quality and ‘develop the plastic recycling processes for tomorrow’.

Bilal Effendi, Director, Paklite fzc and Paklite HK Limited said China is the biggest importer of plastic scrap, which comprises production wastes and recovered materials and that waste plastic imports in China stood at 2.4 million tons in 2002 to about 11 million tons in 2012. “I have been in the waste plastic business since 2006, and we have seen the noose around the quality of materials being tightened gradually since then. The regulation has been there since 2010 and we had seen considerable changes in the requirement of materials from our buyers over a number of years. As per my understanding, operation Green Fence has two objectives from the Chinese government’s stand point: 1) to regulate the quality of waste material entering the country; 2) to regulate the business on the mainland.”

Impact of Operation Green Fence

In Borad’s view, “USA and Europe have been insanely dependent on exports to China. Alternative destinations will be looked into and rightly so. There will be some reduction in the quantity of exports from USA and Europe. Under the Green Fence the role of traders is being eliminated. This may have some negative consequences as the processors do not have enough working capital or human resources to source the scraps.”

China has strict measures to control quality and eventually only good reliable packers with standard quality will be allowed to ship their material to the country, said Hamirani. “This will result in a shortage of good fiber in the short run, till packers are forced to improve their quality to meet green fence requirements.” He added that every packer when exporting has to be more careful in improving the quality to meet the requirements and “this is going to be a challenge for small packers and traders”.

The director of Paklite sees the new regulation as an opportunity. “If only clean scrap materials are allowed for import, you would have to do your recycling, at least to a certain extent, in the country of origin. So the governments in the Middle East or elsewhere should now support recycling and not just collection activities.” But clean scrap is not the only issue, he noted. The regulation states: 1) The import license should neither be borrowed nor sold; 2) The imported material should only be used as raw stuff by the importers and in any case reselling of the imported material is strictly prohibited as indicated in the license; 3) most importantly, the importer should get a clearance from his local customs only and not any other customs in the country.

“This is cutting the business,” Effendi said, further explaining that a majority of the materials enter China via Hong Kong. The Guangdong province has seen 30-40% of the recycling business shut down after the launch. Those involved in the business clearly acknowledge that the final end-use buyers of the plastics scrap have nothing to do with the initial purchase. The material changes hand from the supplier in a foreign country to a buyer in most probably Hong Kong. The Hong Kong company takes responsibility to clear the imported goods in Hong Kong, re-export to China and clear the goods in China before handing over to usually a broker/trader who again resells to recyclers on the mainland. Licenses are borrowed and in a majority of the cases, the importer in China as per the documents is lender of the license only.

“I understand that this is a good move by the Chinese Government as it will restrict the control of the raw materials with a few people holding the license; this might help reduce costs of imported scrap, meaning a lower net back to the foreign supplier and better portion going in the Chinese economy. From a trader’s point of view dependent on the Chinese market, this move will cut off a lot of business and might even drive some players out of business. However, for the local industry anywhere, it is a blessing in disguise as waste raw material will be available at better prices,” he added.

Effendi also stated that there will not be a big impact on the region’s industry as a lot of material is being collected and converted into raw material here, which is then exported for recycling elsewhere including China. “Also recently many industries have been setup which require scrap, but were previously unable to buy due to fierce competition from China. Again, a lot of waste moves into India, Pakistan and other far eastern countries. And if the materials are not exported, it will end up with local processors, so I view it as a gain for the local industry.”

Impact of Green Fence initiative

“We think it will produce positive results for excellent companies with good quality control. The action will push companies to exercise extra care in selecting the source and improving the quality of their materials, thus upgrade their material structure to cater for greener needs in China,” he emphasised, adding that in the long run, it will provide companies with a competitive advantage in material quality and environmental control to survive and prevail.

“While companies within China that use scrap as raw materials might face temporary shortage of production materials and higher cost for scraps, they might get better quality scraps and face low environmental pressure from supervisory department in the long run. So it is not very meaningful to appraise the immediate consequences or benefits for the companies within China,” Xiaofeng noted.

He also said they did not think the action will generate considerable impact on the Middle East recycling industry. “If it will, the impact would only be short pangs of upgrading the company and materials. As far as we learn, the Middle East recycling scrap market is healthy and market oriented. The material structure and quality are generally good. And as China is still a great market for scrap materials, there will always be demand for Middle East recycling materials,” he stated.

“Our business figures did show some decrease in scrap export to China in May. However, the constitution of business decrement is mainly on low quality end market, and affected clients are mainly small scale suppliers buying materials with relatively poor quality and low profit margin, therefore with less market adaptability. Middle East mainstream suppliers with good quality assurance and correct business orientation should obviously be less affected. And the types of scraps most affected are only plastics because of its diversity of sources, especially those coming from city garbage and industrial wastes. Impact on paper and metals are relatively small, because the environmental risks of paper and metals are relatively limited,” the general manager explained.

In his view, the only way to address the ‘quality’ issues is to have better quality control. “China’s policy and law for environmentally safe scraps can hardly be disputed. Any country with certain awareness of environmental protection may apply laws of this kind. The laws are strict but not too exorbitant. We think every businessman should be on the positive side of the quality challenge as it is a stimulus for the industry’s growth. You will be better prepared and more adapted if you do not worry about your material quality, on the contrary, are confident in it.”

Inspection procedures

Scrap materials will have to undergo pre-shipment inspection (PSI) before they are actually shipped to China for customs clearance, where the cargo will go through the final inspection from the port customs and the health and quarantine department (CIQ). China has a set of compulsory national standards for scrap materials. Both PSI and the CIQ inspection are carried out against the same compulsory standards, while the customs also check for forbidden cargoes listed in China’s forbidden lists during scrap inspection.

“The Chinese compulsory standards for different scrap materials mainly control dangerous wastes, explosives, radioactive materials, city garbage and other carried-on wastes. Those are any inspector’s main concern. So always make your materials clean and environmentally safe. Try to keep your materials free from forbidden wastes (dangerous wastes, explosives, radioactive materials, city garbage) and keep other carried-on wastes within limits of standards,” the official stated.

The message is simple: Keep it clean and green!