China wants only the world's cleanest trash

XTJ and its US exporter, Atlanta businessman Song Lin are readying their own recycling plant to collect scrap plastic, clean it, and "pelletise" it before shipping it to China

China’s Yunnan Xintongji Plastic Engineering Co not long ago employed 180 people making construction pipes fashioned from the 3 million pounds of plastic trash it imported from the US each year. Then in January, the Chinese government pulled the plug on lots of American junk and demanded exporters send only the cleanest plastic and paper waste, free of contaminants such as grease and broken glass. Without access to raw materials, XTJ had to lay off all but 30 of its workers and began running at 20 percent capacity.
 

So XTJ and its US exporter, Atlanta businessman Song Lin, got creative.