There's no place in the world quite like China. In the past few decades the rapid development of the country has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty, seen it become known as "the world's factory", and given it the world's second largest economy. Things are happening at a bigger scale, and at a faster pace than they are pretty much anywhere else. This makes it fascinating for all sorts of reasons.

This rapid pace of change causes massive challenges for governments, planners, and businesses. It's not easy to keep up! As China transitions from a low income country to a middle income country, all sorts of new systems are needed. Electricity needs are shooting upwards, transport systems need massive capacity upgrades, and the huge migration from rural to urban areas means that housing and social infrastructure needs to be build faster than anyone's ever had to do it.

Recycling

One of the less obvious challenges arises from the big shift towards packaged foods and drinks - the type that is standard in the west. Over 20 million plastic bottles are thrown away every day in Beijing (China's capital) alone, and it's pretty clear that a big system is going to be needed to manage this. It's one of a hundred different challenges facing city planners, but there's an extra level of trickiness sitting on top of it.

If it were an North American, European, or Australian city, you'd simply build some very large plastic recycling facilities, get a fleet of trucks, and give each household something to put their bottles in for collection. Done. But Beijing already has the biggest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in Asia, yet it's barely being used. Why?

As the video above explains, Chinese cities have thousands of individual bottle collectors, low-income people who ride the streets offering small amounts of money to households for their recyclable products. These products are then on-sold to small, irresponsible factories that melt the bottles down to make chemical fibre, and often discard the toxic leftover chemicals into local rivers.

It sounds bad, and it is. But let's take a second to understand why. Because China is a nation in transition, there are still hundreds of millions of people who aren't fully benefiting from the economic surge. These people are trying to make a living with a business model is harmful to the environment, and it undercuts the efforts of environmentally responsible recycling companies. 

This is not a reason to give up, but rather a sign that China is halfway to a solution. The business investment is there, and the challenge that remains is to stop the street collectors from short-circuiting the business model that makes large-scale, environmentally friendly recycling possible.

What needs to be done?

Efforts are already underway. The local government is being proactive in shutting down the secret sorting yards that on-sell bottles to the dirty processing facilities. So far, it's got the number of shady sorting yards down from 130 to 90, so things are heading in the right direction. The other thing that needs to be done is to reduce the temptation for low income people to be in the informal, street-based bottle collecting business. By investing in education and jobs creation, Chinese cities can help to create opportunities for low income people to earn a living in a more environmentally sustainable way.

Lots of reports of pollution and failing systems come out of China, but it's inevitable that the world's biggest, fastest social transition is going to have some teething problems and awkward phases. The more important question is whether the efforts to get through each teething problem are going to work. In the case of plastic bottle recycling in Beijing, I'm optimistic.