China’s Emergence as a Global Recycling Hub – What Does it Mean for Circular Economy Approaches Elsewhere?

This Evidence Report investigates how China’s rise as a global recycling hub affects other countries’ prospects for moving towards a circular economy. This question has received little, if any, attention in the burgeoning literature on sustainability.

There is substantial literature on global resource depletion, on the need to overcome the throwaway economy and on national and local attempts to move towards a circular economy. There is, however, little analysis of how the global trade in recycled materials, which is increasingly dominated by China, affects other countries’ attempts to build a circular economy.