Showing 1 - 9 of 9
China trashes its recycling industry
News, Adam Minter, Published on 10/10/2017
» For 30 years China has recycled more cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and old computers than any other nation. By doing so, it's saved millions of tonnes of resources and indirectly funded thousands of recycling programmes and companies globally. But now it wants to stop. In July, China notified the World Trade Organisation that it will soon prohibit the import of many types of recyclables. As a result, recycling programmes and companies around the world are scrambling to find new destinations for the junk they once sent to China. In an increasing number of cases, that destination is a landfill.
China's cashless revolution is likely to spread afar
News, Adam Minter, Published on 20/07/2017
» On a recent trip to Shenzhen, in southern China, I came across a subway busker with two tip jars. The first was a cardboard box filled with coins and bills; the second was a small QR code taped to the box that allowed passersby to leave a tip by smartphone. On one level, this was simply smart business: Chinese made around $5.5 trillion in e-payment transactions last year. But it also offered a glimpse of the future.
Used goods shape up as Southeast Asia's 'new thing'
News, Adam Minter, Published on 05/07/2017
» On the second floor of a 22,300-square-metre, used-goods superstore in thesuburbs of Kuala Lumpur, Koji Onazawa pauses beside some old Japanese surfboards.
China's 220 million seniors may reshape the world
News, Adam Minter, Published on 31/05/2017
» For decades, Nestle SA has tried to get its infant milk powder into the hands of China's new mothers with promises of brighter, healthier babies. Now it's trying to do the same for the elderly. Last week, the company launched "Nestle YIYANG Fuel for brainTM senior milk powder", a formula designed to help China's seniors "refuel their brains and start a new smart life".
Ocean gold rush will scar sea life
News, Adam Minter, Published on 16/08/2016
» While commodities traders still work their way out of a historic slump, Japan is looking ahead to the next boom. According to Bloomberg News, next year a group of Japanese companies and government agencies will start mining minerals at a site about 1,600km southwest of Tokyo -- and 1.5km beneath the ocean's surface. It will be the first large-scale test of whether mineral deposits can be mined commercially from the seafloor.
Despite anger, Beijing isn't in the mood for protests
News, Adam Minter, Published on 15/07/2016
» Chinese didn't waste any time venting their anger at The Hague's ruling against their country's territorial claims in the South China Sea. Within minutes of the news, Chinese social media was flooded with thousands of comments parroting a testy, often profane nationalism.
Chinese company wants to turn the world's lights on
News, Adam Minter, Published on 05/04/2016
» China's State Grid Corporation, the world's biggest power company, is on an impressive buying binge. As Bloomberg News reports, the company is "actively in bidding" for power assets in Australia, hoping to add them to a portfolio of Italian, Brazilian, and Filipino companies. The goal isn't simply to invest, however. State Grid's Chairman Liu Zhenya has a plan that he believes will stall global warming, put millions of people to work and bring about world peace by 2050.
Introduction of two-child policy is too little, too late
News, Adam Minter, Published on 27/10/2015
» When Chinese leaders convene this week for a four-day meeting on the future of the country's economy, the biggest news might have to do with babies. According to reports in Chinese media, the government may be ready to relax the notorious "one-child" policy, in existence since the late 1970s, and allow Chinese parents to have two kids.
Indonesia refuses to be railroaded into China deal
News, Adam Minter, Published on 10/09/2015
» It was a deal that a developing nation such as Indonesia wasn't supposed to refuse. In return for a $5.5 billion (199 billion baht) Chinese loan to be repaid over 50 years, Indonesia would receive its first high-speed rail line, a 150-kilometre high-tech bauble to run from the capital, Jakarta, to the country's third-largest city, Bandung. But late last week, President Joko Widodo's government did the unexpected and refused it -- and a less-attractive Japanese proposal -- in favour of soliciting bids to build a slower train that will cost about 40% less. According to Bloomberg News, the high-speed line was not considered "commercially viable".