China has announced that it is set to ban all waste imports from January 1,
2021, as it is nearing the peak point of a three-year phase-out of accepting
overseas junk, reported AFP.

Citing a memo released from the
Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Commerce, and the General
Administration of Customs, Xinhua news agency reported that the “dumping,
stacking and disposal of waste products from overseas would also be banned in
China from the first day of next year.”

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The country has been importing solid
waste since the 1980s, which later used to be cleaned, crushed and processed into raw material
by the local companies for industrialists and factories.

Putting a
halt to its reputation as a global dustbin, the Chinese government decided to
cease waste imports from foreign countries in January 2018, causing backlogs of
garbage in the exporting countries.

Since then, the country has continued
to gradually ban imports of different sorts including plastics, car parts,
paper, textiles, and scrap steel or wood

But according to the Xinhua news
agency the 2021 ban will mushroom waste imports of all kinds with no exception,
reported AFP.

It is these
several years of being the world’s largest importer of rubbish which often
amounted to augmented pollution levels as the materials could be recycled or
disposed of properly.

According to AFP, China‘s solid waste imports stood at 13.48 million
tonnes last year, down from 22.63 million tonnes in 2018, while the figure
for the first 10 months of this year was down 42.7%.