China Refuses to Recycle More of the World’s Trash
For decades, other countries shipped containers full of scrap and waste to China for recycling.
Depth of Field
02.20.18
When You Give a Kid a Camera
from Yuanjin PhotoThis dispatch of photojournalism from China cuts across a broad spectrum of society, from film screenings in Beijing for the visually impaired to an acrobatics school 200 miles south, in Puyang, Henan province, and from children in rural Sichuan...
‘Unprecedented’: Trash From China Swamps Hong Kong Beaches
Mountains of garbage are meters high at a popular beach....
Environment
05.21.15
China’s Role in Illegal Trade of Toxic E-Waste Rising Sharply
from chinadialogueDiscarded smartphones and other gadgets are poisoning the environment and people in developing countries, where most of the world’s electronic waste (e-waste) is being dumped illegally and now involves criminal gangs, the UN’s environment arm...
Environment
07.23.14
Moving a Mountain, of Trash
from chinadialogueOn July 1, tough new standards for pollution from waste incinerators came into effect. The move is an attempt to end the conflict between communities across China and the nearby rubbish-burning plants they believe threaten their health and house...
Sinica Podcast
04.25.14
Trash Talk with Adam Minter
from Sinica PodcastAnyone living in China doubtless has a sense of the unholy number of people who seem to be involved in the trash trade here, and who will ferret away everything from your cardboard boxes to plastic bottles faster than you can unpack them or...
This Chinese Filmmaker Can’t Stop Talking Trash
Documentary filmmaker and photographer Wang Jiuliang spent four years, between 2008 and 2011, documenting over 460 hazardous and mostly illegal landfill sites around Beijing.
His award-winning film Beijing Besieged by Waste (2011...
How China Profits From Our Junk
The son and grandson of scrap metalists, reporter Adam Minter traveled throughout the world to investigate how what we discard—and reuse—helps drive the global economy.
China Doesn’t Want Your Trash Anymore
The Chinese government just began forbidding the import of certain types of solid waste and other illegal waste mixed in with the good stuff. China is the primary source of demand of the U.S.’s to-be-recycled plastics.
Environment
07.24.12
Guangzhou’s Rubbish Charge Struggle
from chinadialogueLike many of China’s rapidly growing cities, Guangzhou is under siege from landfill. The southern city produces about 18,000 tons of household waste every day, 14,000 tons of which needs to be disposed of after sorting and recycling. That is as...
Environment
07.04.12
Dirty Truth about China’s Incinerators
from chinadialogueXie Yong could be called a pioneer. He is one of very few to date to sue a Chinese government agency over its unlawful refusal of requested data. His crusade for change has little to do with civic altruism, however. Xie’s struggle is personal in...