China’s decision to stop being the world’s dumping ground is causing a lot of pain around the globe.

Starting in 2018, it has banned several types of solid waste imports, and imposed stricter contamination standards on items allowed in.

These measures regarding imported recyclables were taken under China’s National Sword policy in order to protect human health and the environment.

Here in Metro Vancouver, a number of recycling companies that sell to China are also feeling impacts.

“Many recycling companies have experienced increased costs related to sorting collected material to reduce the amount of contamination, as well as reduced numbers of buyers of recycled materials,” according to a Metro Vancouver staff report.

The report was prepared by environmental planner Andrew Doi, and included in the agenda Friday (April 12) of the regional district’s zero waste committee.

Doi wrote that companies affected are those that provide recycling services to commercial and institutional customers.

According to Doi, these firms had to “make significant adjustments to the new standards in global recycling markets”.

“For example, recycling markets for rigid plastics collected from generators outside of the Recycle BC program underwent a period of poor conditions, where materials were stockpiled and were unable to be sold,” Doi noted.

Recycle B.C. is a nonprofit responsible for residential packaging and paper product recycling in the province.

Doi wrote in his report that “nearly all of the plastics collected for residential recycling are processed within BC, through Recycle BC’s contractor, Green by Nature, and specifically Merlin Plastics…”

In its latest annual report, Recycle B.C. noted some challenges with China’s National Sword policy.

“While the vast majority of Recycle BC’s plastics are directed to end markets in the province of British Columbia, our mixed paper, including paper, boxboard, newspaper and cardboard, has historically been sold to Chinese markets,” the business sector-funded group stated.

“It is becoming increasingly challenging to meet China’s new specifications for paper recycling, despite BC having one of the lowest contamination rates in North America,” the organization continued. “For now, Recycle BC continues to ship materials to overseas markets and is working with our partners to innovate and plan for what the future holds.”

Recycle B.C. also noted in the annual report that the “inability to find end markets for mixed waste material is now a global issue as many recycling programs strive to meet increasingly tighter restrictions such as China’s requirement for a contamination level of no more than 0.5%”.

“Recycle BC’s Streetscape pilot often resulted in a contamination level of greater than 30%, suggesting that streetscape packaging and paper collection may not be recoverable under current market conditions,” the group noted.

Recycle B.C. also stated in the annual report that majority of paper and fiber wastes in the province were sold to “end-markets in China, with the rest either remaining in BC or going to end-markets in Indonesia and South Korea”.