The Double Edged Sword: The Economic and Environmental Impact of China’s 2018 Imported Plastics Ban on U.S.-Asia Relations

The global waste trade has historically allowed wealthier nations to offload plastic waste to developing countries, exacerbating environmental degradation and economic dependency. Until 2018, China imported nearly half of the world’s plastic waste, primarily from the United States. However, the Operation National Sword policy banned 24 plastic imports into China, triggering a dramatic restructuring of global waste trade flows, with U.S. plastic exports shifting to being processed domestically, but with a rise in Southeast and South Asia exports, particularly Malaysia, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. This thesis quantitatively analyzes international trade data from 2013 to 2024, revealing that while China and Hong Kong once accounted for 87% of U.S. plastic waste exports in 2010, this figure plummeted to 0% in 2020, forcing waste redirection to alternative destinations, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India– although this spike in imports to developing nations was not long-term. This study also cross-analyzes waste import data with air quality trends at key recycling centers in China and Malaysia. Findings indicate that China’s air pollution (PM2.5 levels) declined by 34% from 2014 to 2024, correlating with its sharp reduction in plastic imports; conversely, Malaysia’s PM2.5 pollution increased by 31% during the same period, with a notable spike in 2019 following its peak plastic waste imports. This correlation, while not statistically significant, still suggests that while China’s ban improved its own air quality, the environmental burden of plastic processing was simply transferred elsewhere, a continuation of the neocolonial power dynamics from before.