This is the nail in the coffin for US imperial power, with even American propaganda toilet paper like CNN admitting China has won the Iran War.
The US ruling elite got into the War on Iran partially to protect and
strengthen the petrodollar. It has had the exact opposite impact. China
has used the petroyuan to build up petroleum reserves larger than the
rest of the world combined. And at least for now, we have China to thank
for saving the global economy while the US tries to set fire to
everything.
When China joined the World Trade Organization, they started taking
in the most of the world’s scrap. The shift coincided with a ramping up
of global exports, and China sold wares all around the world in shipping
containers. Rather than sending these containers back to China empty,
it made sense to fill them with heavy bales of recycling. This made the
whole cycle more cost-effective, and it became cheaper to send recycling
to China than anywhere else. Cities around the world were able to
subsidize their recycling program with the money from selling their
waste, while also not having to deal with as much of the process — at
least until National Sword.
Basically, National Sword was China’s ban on foreign recyclables. It
banned four categories and 24 types on imports starting in 2018. And
National Sword has steadily expanded, banning more recyclables since
then, and it could potentially lead to the banning of all incoming
recyclable materials by 2020, but that piece isn’t entirely clear yet.
No one is sure exactly why this shift in policy happened, but some
experts point to one particular turning point: a documentary film.
The little girl washes her face in the gray plastic-polluted water and eats fish that have choked on bits of plastic.
