29:19
How did a country that used to look like this - now have one of the best recycling systems in the world? If you want a glimpse of what the future of plastic recycling looks like, this might be it. Each little robot is sifting through 55 pieces of garbage per minute - and it's not humans running the machine here. It's AI. But Taiwan is also a huge plastics consumer and manufacturer - just head to a night market, or walk around. anywhere. "We're a poster child of that plastic pollution." The country is no longer swamped with trash like it was in the 90s, so it's obviously doing some things right.
We went to Taipei to see for ourselves just how it's done. And within hours of being there, I discovered that something pretty important was missing. "So I just had my little snack, and look how much waste I already produced." But I couldn't find any public trash bins to put it in." "There aren't any trash bins on the street?" Turns out the city removed thousands of them about a decade ago. Why? Because in Taiwan, you have to pay for any waste that can't be recycled.
The whole point is to make people responsible for minimizing the amount of trash that goes into incinerators. Everyone holds on to their own garbage, and these iconic cars come around to pick it up five days a week. It's a whole Taipei ritual. This way, people can't cheat and throw their private waste in public bins to avoid the fees. And they're not shy about getting shame involved. It's a pretty intense recycling culture that places a lot of the burden on individuals. But it's part of the policy structure that has gotten Taiwan in the top ranking in Asia for its waste recovery rate in last year's Environmental Performance Index.
Although. it also has its flaws. But I wondered what happens after this supposedly recyclable trash gets picked up. so what did I do? Got on one of these myself, of course. "Ready, go!" These trucks belong to a private company, Da Fon, just one of the many businesses the government works with to collect, sort, and regenerate waste.
"Not a lot of traffic, weather's really nice." These companies get subsidies from a centralized Recycling Management Fund. Their pay is guaranteed, so even if global plastic prices drop, recyclers are protected. "Smelling. It's starting to smell a little bit. So this is the stuff we're going to pick up, this is all residential plastic waste." This centralized, national fund that directly subsidizes recycling is what sets Taiwan apart from other countries. Who pays into this recycling fund?
Producers and importers, so the policy also keeps manufacturers responsible for their plastic footprint from the get-go. "Oh my god it stinks. So much milk!" And it makes it easy and profitable for businesses to get into the recycling game. "Recycling is great, but I am getting heat stroke!" To cool off, we went to another plant to hang out with some special robots, who have one of the most important jobs in the industry. "Hello!" "Hi!" "Welcome!" "Beina. Nice to meet you." " I'm Sandy!
Welcome to our AI sorting robotic center!" "What are these toys here, what's going on?" "This is kind of like a little trinket they do 'cause toys cannot be recycled, actually." "Wait why can't they be recycled?" "So for example this, there's cushion inside, it's cotton, you cannot recycle cotton."
"Okay, good to know. Toys." "And it's just cute, too!" "Save me!" The plant processes 40-50 tons of household recyclables every day. The AI sorting arms identify 17 types, from plastics and metals to paper. "Alright." "Okay, wow, hello arm."
This facility handles recyclables from five cities around Taipei. And while AI improves sorting efficiency, one of its biggest flaws is that robot arms aren't as agile as human hands. So, we still need real people, in the end. .which is exactly what happened next. "Don't stuff your trash bags too tight, guys. Jams the machine."
"Okay I've been holding onto all of my trash. Can I just throw this out here?" "Let me see the trash first." "I have onigiri, destroyed. doujiang (soy) bottle." "PET, all good. This one is good, but all these flexible little ones, these are going to be treated as trash. "You can just throw it overboard." "Bye." Roughly 95% of what's here is able to be recycled, so relatively little has to go to incinerators. "So basically this is the plastic that's been sorted. And then this will go into another sorting facility
that sorts out specifically milk bottle for HDPE, and PP will be lunch boxes." "There's a flyaway wok." "Wait what, where?" "This wok is just like." "It just fell, I think." "Random casualties." "These are all woks! "These are all woks!" "Oh my god." You guys want a free wok?" "Yeah. Let's take a free wok. I'm taking a free wok." The effort to AI upgrade everything isn't just for the sorting facility - Da Fon also wants to bring it to its regeneration plant, which is where all the good plastic
goes to get a chance at a second chance at life: this time as pellets. And it's a family affair. This is Da Fon's CEO, Matt Lin, who is. Sandy's dad. This is where the bales of sorted plastic are cut, washed and dried. In recycling, purity of material is the most important factor, so this stage is crucial. Then, they're molded into pellets. This plant employs only 50 or so people, but the AI takeover isn't far in the future.
So how good is Taiwan at plastics recycling? A study showed that roughly 80% of imported and recycled plastic were used to make either finished products or pellets for export. Its recycling industry is larger than its domestic waste supply, so it actually imports plastic to be processed. But some say the metrics and good PR can be misleading. "Recycling means the material is being collected responsibly somehow, and then it's responsibly. burned." Arthur Huang is the CEO of Miniwiz, a Taiwanese company that converts waste materials into architectural fixtures.
"Most people call that downcycling. And I call that actually just putting the particle into smaller particles into the air." Taiwan actually has one of the highest densities of waste incinerators in the world. And that's where most of the flimsier plastics like bags and straw wrappers have to be burned, since their quality is too low for recycling. Even if cities nail plastics recycling, there's another big pile to deal with.
Good news is industrial waste is also cleaner and there is a lot of it. Taiwan has a lot of big industry, in particular semiconductors and petrochemicals. So there is big potential for reuse there. That industry is exactly what makes its recycling infrastructure work - the country already has the industrial base to handle the manufacturing processes needed in recycling, at scale. "What's the recycling system like where you live? Tell us in the comments below. And don't forget to click like, and subscribe.
See you next time."
