INTRODUCTION United States and China as Plastic Superpowers

By Clare Auld-Brokish, Angela Pan, Yunyi Huang, Tonxin Zhu and Karen Mancl

Over half of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics produced from 1950 to 2015 have been manufactured since the year 2000, of which a majority was used in packaging. The current model for plastic packaging is linear: from production and single-use to irretrievable disposal. Promoting recycling is often touted as key for achieving circularity, simply turning plastics into other plastics. However, in 2016, only 21 percent of the plastic produced was economically recyclable, and only 15 percent was actually recycled. The rest ended up in landfills, incinerators, and the natural environment.

As the world’s largest consumers and producers of plastics, the United States and China are pivotal for helping to close the loop on global plastic waste. For years the main narrative has been that China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are responsible for most of the ocean plastic leakage in the world. However, recent studies, such as the National Academy of Sciences’ Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Plastic Waste, indicate that the United States is the world’s largest generator of plastic waste and has one of the lowest recycling rates (9 percent) of any industrialized country.

The Intertwined Plastic Waste Footprint

The United States has a well-functioning waste collection and sorting infrastructure system. However, for decades it has shipped half of its recyclables (plastic, glass, etc.) overseas to China and other countries that too often lacked the infrastructure to recycle them, significantly contributing to the global plastic pollution crisis.

In 2018, China’s National Sword Policy banned the import of plastic waste. For nearly 40 years, China had used these imports as industrial feedstock, but the boom in E-commerce and food delivery companies in the early 2010s caused packaging waste to rapidly pile up. As part of the government’s war on pollution, Chinese policymakers launched domestic waste management reforms and introduced policies to reduce single-use-plastic.

After 2018, Southeast Asian countries also started to turn away waste exports from the United States and other western countries. Many U.S. cities were subsequently forced to store recyclables in warehouses until they could be incinerated or landfilled. The lack of markets for recyclables led many U.S. cities to cancel or reduce their recycling programs. In response, U.S. policymakers passed or debated more stringent state and federal legislation to reduce plastic and other single-use packaging.

Opportunities for U.S.- China Plastic Leadership

If plastics were a country, it would be the 5th largest carbon emitter. Judith Enck, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics, and featured in one of this issue’s Closed Loop Innovator boxes, has described plastics as “Plan B for the fossil fuel industry.” The International Energy Administration reports that plastics, which are made from petrochemicals, are set to be the largest driver of world oil demand, outpacing demand from trucks, aviation, and shipping. Plastic production is a big business and U.S. and Chinese companies make up the top three producers.

While the two countries have not established bilateral cooperation around plastic waste, their economies are intertwined in a way that any national waste policy regulating the industry reverberates in both and across the world. The United States and China have signed on to support the Global Plastics Treaty, which could encourage both countries to accelerate their actions to close the loop on plastic waste.

Both the United States and China have announced major commitments to achieve carbon neutrality, but most of their investments and policy actions focus on the energy sector. Presidents Xi and Biden met in November 2022 and announced they would restart bilateral dialogues on climate cooperation. Notably, researchers, activists, and companies in both countries are starting to highlight the growing greenhouse gas footprint of plastics, opening up a potential new avenue for U.S.-China to engage in joint research, dialogues and action.

The authors in this issue highlight similar trends in U.S. and Chinese action on plastic waste. Policymakers in both countries are exploring national standards and practices that incentivize companies to reduce the waste and pollution of plastic packaging. Many of our authors advocate for enhanced producer responsibility laws as the most important policy mechanism for changing the business of waste in both countries.

if plastics were a country, it would be the 5th largest carbon emitter.