China Environment Forum’s Role as Convener

and Catalyst for Action

Since 1997, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum (CEF) has carried out research and exchange projects that bring together American, Chinese, and other Asian experts to explore the most imperative environmental and sustainable development issues both inside China and in the greater Asian region. The networks built and knowledge gathered through meetings, publications, and research activities have established CEF as one of the most reliable sources for information on China/Asian environment trends and bolstered CEF’s capability to undertake long-term and specialized projects on topics such as clean energy development in U.S. and China, water-energy confrontations, environmental justice, Japan-China-U.S. clean water networks, water conflict resolution, food safety, and environmental activism and green journalism in China. Our current initiatives:

• Turning the Tide: Japanese-U.S. Partnerships to Slow Ocean Plastic Pollution in Asia is a comprehensive two-year research and convening project to examine the sources and causes of plastic waste in China and Southeast Asia and identify possible innovative solutions through cooperation, technology, and policy. The Institute of Developing Economies and China Dialogue are project partners.

• The Plastic Pipeline: A Serious Game for Plastic Reduction Education is an educational video game project created in partnership with the Wilson Center’s Serious Games Initiative that aims to bring the complex world of plastic policy to the fingertips of people around the world and to spread knowledge about the sources of and solutions to plastic waste leakage.

• U.S.-China Energy and Climate Action is an ongoing series of meetings and blogs that keep a finger on the pulse of emerging trends in clean energy and climate action in the world’s two largest energy users.

• Vulnerable Deltas is a research and convening project in partnership with the East-West Center exploring the climate, pollution and development threats to three deltas in Southeast Asian and two in China.

INTRODUCTION —Clare Auld-Brokish, Angela Pan, Yunyi Huang, Tongxin Zhu and Karen Mancl / 4 INFOGRAPHIC 1: The Plastic Superpowers: Plastic Production and Waste in the United States and China —Angela Pan & Solange Reppas / 6 INSIDE THIS ISSUE —Jennifer L. Turner / 8 OUR AUTHORS / 11

More Effective, More Sustainable and More Equitable Recycling Reform For Maine

Chrissy Adamowicz

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Tracking the Fight Against Plastic: A Plastic Credit System

—Maggie Ka Ka Lee 40

The Global Treaty on Plastic Pollution can Catalyze a Roadmap for Circularity in the United States

—Anthony Tusino 43

INFOGRAPHIC 2: Single-Use Plastic Snapshot in the U.S. and China

—Angela Pan & Solange / 46

SECTION 2 Closed-Loop Innovators 48

3

PLASTIC POLICY ACTION / 50

China’s Policy Push to Close the Loop on Plastic

—Kathinka Furst and Mengqi Li 51

Moves to Close the Loop on Plastic waste in the United States

—David Biderman

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Building a Circular Economy for Plastics in China

—Nanqing Jiang 58

The Invisible Plastic Problem: Agricultural Plastic in China and the US —Karen Mancl 62

Biodegradable Plastic: A Potential Solution for Agricultural Mulch

—Markus Flury, Douglas Hayes, and Karen Mancl ....................................................................... 66

INFOGRAPHIC 3: Final (Often Polluting) Resting Place for U.S. and Chinese Plastics

—Angela Pan & Solange / 70

SECTION 3 Closed-Loop Innovators 72