Is recycling broken?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With countries shutting their doors to foreign recyclable waste and a lack of processing capacity back home, is the recycling system broken?
China used to accept 55% of the world’s plastic and paper waste. But it closed its doors in 2018. Initially other countries in South East Asia, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam took over China’s waste processing role. But they too are now sending much of the waste back, arguing it is contaminated and is harming their own environments.
This has created major problems for countries in the West who traditionally relied on others to process their recycling waste. In addition, there’s confusion about what households can and cannot put into their recycling bins, along with that lack of recycling capacity back home. So what is the answer to the growing mountains of what was supposed to be recyclable waste? Could Sweden, which has reduced the amount of household waste it sends to landfill to under one per cent, have an answer? It’s not one everyone agrees with.
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: John Murphy
(A man picks up plastic waste to be recycled at the Kawatuna landfill in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo credit: Basri Marzuki / Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of The Inquiry is a repeat and was originally broadcast in January 2020. |
| 0:08.3 | Welcome to The Inquiry, I'm Charmincozier. |
| 0:12.2 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:17.0 | A giant tanker eases into a port, its cargo is unloaded under the hot sun. |
| 0:29.0 | A customs officer opens the first of eight large shipping containers. |
| 0:34.0 | Disposable gloves protect his hands. |
| 0:37.0 | An overpowering stink of damp rotting rubbish escapes from the crates. |
| 0:46.0 | There are bundles of use paper, but within the bundles there are also plastic bottles, |
| 0:52.0 | snack food packaging, leftover meals in convenience food |
| 0:55.6 | trays, and maggots. |
| 0:58.6 | The officer retrieves and holds up a used nappy. The verdict is clear. These 210 tons of waste will not be allowed into |
| 1:09.2 | Indonesia for recycling. The cargo is going back to where it came from, Australia. |
| 1:17.0 | Indonesia isn't the only country getting out of the recycling business, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and India |
| 1:25.1 | are all cracking down on imported waste. It seems the way we do recycling isn't |
| 1:30.6 | working anymore. This week we're asking is recycling broken. |
| 1:37.0 | Part 1. Return to Sender. |
| 1:43.0 | I think our |
| 1:50.0 | I think our recycling system is broken because so many years people rely on others |
| 1:57.0 | to recycle our stuff thinking that somebody else will do it for you |
| 2:02.0 | that is a bit ridiculous. |
| 2:04.0 | I'm Yuh Yunizma Watte. |
| 2:08.0 | I'm the co-founder and senior advisor of Nexus-3 Foundation, an NGO based in Indonesia working towards |
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