The U.S. Is Burning Recyclable Materials Cause There's No Where To Send Them

Arnav Dhar - Mar 01, 2019

The U.S. is now facing a big problem as China rejected to import recyclable materials, resulting in them have to burn them.

The U.S. used to "export" around 40% of the recyclable materials it gathered to China for recycling.

However, earlier last year, China chose to not bringing in most of this recyclable waste, and that decision has made U.S. urban areas grappling with processing heaps of recyclables. The result is, in a hopeless manner, they simply just have to burn them.

Recyclable Materials Burnt In Covanta — The plant's incinerator is producing a huge amount of emissions as the heaps of trash just keep flowing in.

According to a story recently published by The Guardian, China's decision to stop importing waste is influencing Chester City, Philadelphia, where there is a waste-to-energy plant run by a company called Covanta.

More than 3.5 tons of garbage is burnt in this plant everyday. Since the U.S. can no longer export recyclables, around 200 tons of them comprises of recyclables, partly plastics — and specialists concern that this can affect the health of 34,000 inhabitants of Chester.

Marilyn Howarth, a public health specialist, revealed to The Guardian that:

She added:

A large portion of the garbage and recyclable materials the Chester City's plant is burning is from within the U.S. itself, including faraway cities such as NYC or North Carolina, as indicated by The Guardian.

That implies the residents of one generally small U.S. city are bearing the weight of a far more extensive populace's garbage burden — just similar to how Chinese people had to experience the ill effects of the whole world's amount of waste.

Paul Gilman, chief of sustainability office, stated: