昨天，69个装载着约2400吨垃圾的集装箱在菲律宾苏比克国际码头整装完毕。
这批5年前就从加拿大送来的“洋垃圾”即将被原路送回。
不用太惊讶，菲律宾已经因为这件事和加拿大“扯皮”了好几年。
20天后，加拿大不仅会收到包含大量电子产品垃圾和厨房垃圾的69个集装箱，他们还会等来一份账单——一笔10亿菲律宾比索的运费、合约1.3亿人民币。
The Philippines has started returning 2,400 tons of waste to Canada Friday after prolonged diplomatic wrangling between the two countries over the issue, Reuters reported.
Dozens of shipping containers filled with trash from Canada have been declared illegal imports by a Philippine court in 2016, but the Canadian government refused to acknowledge the issue and missed the deadline to take back the trash set by the Philippines on May 15 this year.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened last week that he would throw the waste into Canadian waters, or dump it in front of the Canadian embassy in Manila if the Canadian government does not take action now.
"Baaaaaaaaa bye, as we say it," Philippine's Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted on Thursday, along with an image of a ship leaving the port.
与此同时，马来西亚也在行动。在中国严格限制进口塑料垃圾后，马来西亚成了发达国家的下一个垃圾出口目的地。
"I think you need to take back your rubbish," Malaysian Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told CBC News reporters on Tuesday, as they found a shipping container from the U.S. filled with plastic bags near Kuala Lumpur.
On the same day, 3,000 tonnes of illegally imported plastic waste were shipped back to countries including the UK, the U.S., Australia, Japan and Canada.
不再做“全球塑料垃圾场”
中国说到做到
2017年7月，中国国务院办公厅下达文件，正式通知世界贸易组织（WTO）本国将在2017年年底前紧急禁止4类共24种固体废物入境。这一政策在2018年，又得到了进一步的补充。
On January 1, 2018, China announced it would stop importing 24 categories of recyclable materials. Additional 32 types of "solid waste" were added to the list of banned substances three months after the announcement.
早期为什么进口“洋垃圾”？究其原因，还是在于“洋垃圾”背后的经济利益。
改革开放之初，中国的制造业野蛮扩张，对垃圾回收有着很高的需求。他们从这些进口的塑料、废纸和金属材料中回收可用材料，成本比从石油提取物中合成更加便宜。
Since the 1980s, China started importing secondary raw materials, and it soon became the world's largest plastic waste importer. But due to growing environmental concerns, the Chinese government limited imports of plastic waste since 2017.
According to China Briefing, two-thirds of waste papers exported from the U.S. were shipped directly to China in 2016. Countries in the European Union also take China as their main dumping ground, exporting 87 percent of their “recyclable waste” to China, directly or indirectly.
中国在送交WTO的文件中明确表示，进口的固体垃圾中含有大量高污染垃圾和危险性废物。为了保护环境与公众的健康，中国将调整垃圾进口法规，拒收高污染的固体废弃物。
中国不再进口“洋垃圾”
最大垃圾制造者慌了
据统计，2017年与2018年，4类24种垃圾流向世界的最大来源国分别是美国、日本、德国、英国以及加拿大。
这些主要垃圾出口国在过去二三十年长期依赖中国的垃圾进口，基本上没有建立一套可行的替代处理机制。
因此，在中国禁止进口“洋垃圾”之后，其环境问题纷纷现出“原形”。
The world's wealthier nations have been dumping tens of millions of tons of garbage to Asian countries for more than two decades.
But now, with China no longer interested in taking more – countries like the U.S., Japan, U.K. are groaning under the weight of garbage that no one seems to know what to do with.
中国“洋垃圾”入境禁令出台后，美国可回收废品的价格一路走低。去年10月，废纸的价格暴跌35%至40%。
美国西海岸的许多州从去年开始就面临着废品堆积的问题。俄勒冈州一个废料回收商在接受《纽约时报》采访时称，从去年年初开始，他的库存已经“失控”。
A recycler from Oregon, the U.S. said his inventory had gone "out of control" since the beginning of last year during an interview with The New York Times.
英国也不例外。
英国回收协会执行总裁西蒙•艾林在接受《卫报》采访时表示，“过去20年来我们一直依赖中国处理我们的废料，现在不知道该如何应对。”
"We have relied on exporting plastic recycling to China for 20 years, and now people do not know what is going to happen," Simon Ellin, chief executive of the Recycling Association in the U.K. told The Guardian.
就连以往以垃圾分类和回收而闻名的日本，也同样陷入困境。
据日本环境省今年3月份的调查，日本超三成自治体垃圾量超国家标准，相比去年7月的调查翻了七倍。
Japan, too, finds itself buried in plastic waste after China stops importing the world's trash, with some local governments reporting that piled-up waste had exceeded the country's legal limit.
然而，随着垃圾进口剧增，亚洲各国也纷纷开始“禁废”，让已然面临困境的主要垃圾出口国更是“焦头烂额”。
泰国自去年7月开始，垃圾总进口量发生巨大下滑。曼谷港开始禁止装有废塑料、电子垃圾的集装箱入港。
马来西亚也在去年5月宣布，退回60个装有发达国家不可回收塑料垃圾的集装箱，这些垃圾被伪装成可回收垃圾以虚假申报方式入境，总重量达3300吨。
经济利益 V.S. 生态与健康
我们的垃圾该去哪儿？在这个议题里，也许没有一个国家可以独善其身。
废弃垃圾对土壤、空气、河流的环境危害都是不可估量的，对缺乏保护的垃圾分拣工人的伤害更是无需赘言。
尽管各国相继出台“洋垃圾”入境禁令，但“洋垃圾”背后的巨额利润使非法进口、夹带走私“洋垃圾”的交易持续存在。
因此，想要彻底堵住“洋垃圾”，难在监管，更难在部门之间的监管协作。
如何完善监管制度，如何使多部门合力，如何严格把控“洋垃圾”走私、收购、加工、销售的各个环节，仍是我们需要思考的。
While more countries start to step up the efforts of banning waste imports, illegal imports, however, still exist in every corner of the world due to its huge profit margin.
The environmental requirement and the supervision standard have both been brought up to a more promising level in recent years.
But maybe that's just not enough, yet.
（Sources：央视新闻、澎湃新闻、观察者网、The New York Times）