IN a smoke-filled plant about 80 kilometers northwest of Shanghai, masked workers feed sacks of plastic scrap into shuddering old machines that transform them into pellets used to make a range of manufactured goods. But while the factory, operated by Taicang Jinhui Recycling Co., remains a hive of activity, the company has been moving much of its capacity to Malaysia following Chinese restrictions on recycled plastic imports that came into effect this year. The curbs on imported trash have deprived recyclers of about half of what they need to produce the plastic pellets they sell to manufacturers of products ranging from office furniture to sheathes for fiber-optic cables. And with domestic supply hard to come by, many have to move abroad to stay alive. “Here in our industrial park we are the only company still producing — another 22 enterprises have stopped operations and just do warehousing or whatever, and all their staff have disappeared,” said Jinhui’s chairman, Thomas He. Jinhui has laid off 250 workers from its workforce of around 400 people since the restrictions came into force, though it has hired another 600 in Malaysia. The Malaysia plant was set up almost entirely with Chinese equipment and technology. The company is one of more than 1,000 recycling enterprises — a third of China’s total — to relocate its expertise, equipment and waste supply chains to Southeast Asia, according to the China Scrap Plastic Association (CSPA), with total investment so far estimated at around 10 billion yuan (US$1.54 billion). The association did not provide further details.(SD-Agencies) |