For years the smell of melted plastic permeated the Chinese village of Luwang, where dozens of workshops processed imported waste. Now the village is eerily quiet and relatively odourless, caught up in a crackdown on recycling of imported plastic that is causing waste to pile up at ports in the US and Europe.

　　多年来，中国山东省的路旺村里一直弥漫着塑料熔化的气味，这里曾经聚集了众多加工进口废塑料的作坊。因为当局对回收利用进口塑料行业的打击，路旺村如今变得异常安静，刺鼻的气味也没那么重了。此次打击还导致塑料垃圾在美国和欧洲的港口堆积成山。

　　“We used to import plastic rubbish from Britain?.?.?.?but now customs won’t let it in,” said Zheng Min, who was guarding the village’s government office in east China’s Shandong province. Government inspectors swept through the village last May, he added, shuttering its recycling companies. “All our development has been dependent on plastic. Some people made millions from recycling and developed large companies. Now it’s all gone. I never expected the government to take such measures,” he added.

　　看守村委会办公室的郑敏说：“我们过去一直从英国进口塑料垃圾……但现在海关不放行了。”他还表示，去年5月，政府检查人员搜查了整个村子，关闭了这里的回收公司。“我们所有的发展都依靠塑料。有些人靠回收垃圾赚了好几百万，开起了大公司。现在都化为乌有了。我从没想到政府会采取这样的措施。”他补充说。

　　This month China began enforcing rules banning the import of 24 grades of solid waste, including mixed paper and plastics. The country imported more than 7m tonnes of plastic scrap in 2016, according to the China Scrap Plastic Association, accounting for more than half of all the waste plastic exported globally that year.

　　中国从本月起开始实施禁止进口包括未经分拣的废纸、废塑料在内的24种固体废物的规定。根据中国废塑料协会的数据，2016年中国进口了700多万吨塑料废物，占当年全球废塑料出口的一半以上。

　　Due to a lack of recycling capacity, “low-end plastic items still have no alternative outlet other than landfills and incineration in [many] exporting countries”, said CSPA president Steve Wong in a statement.

　　中国废塑料协会会长黄楚祺在一份声明中表示，由于缺乏回收能力，在许多出口国家，低端塑料废物除了填埋和焚烧以外仍然没有其他处理办法。

　　Britain alone has shipped 2.7m tonnes of plastic waste to China since 2012, according to Greenpeace, the environmental campaign group, with British officials admitting that there was no alternative market for such a high volume of waste.

　　环保组织绿色和平的数据显示，自2012年以来，仅英国就向中国输送了270万吨塑料废物。英国官员承认，没有其他市场能够接收如此巨大数量的废塑料。

　　Some US companies would have no choice but to let waste pile up in American warehouses or car parks because alternative markets for recyclables such as Indonesia were still “nascent”, said the US National Waste & Recycling Association, a trade group. The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery said about a third of the recyclables collected in the state had been exported to foreign markets, with most going to China.

　　行业组织美国全国废物回收协会表示，一些美国企业别无选择，只能让废品堆积在美国的仓库或停车场，因为印度尼西亚等可替代的回收市场“刚起步”。加州资源回收局表示，该州产生的可回收废品中，约三分之一出口到了国外市场，其中大部分到了中国。

　　The ban on imports and the closure of small plastic processors in places such as Luwang is a reflection of Beijing’s harder line on pollution, and the fact China is generating more plastic waste itself, reducing the need for imports.

　　中国禁止进口塑料废物并关停路旺村等地小型塑料加工作坊的举措，反映了北京方面在治理污染上的强硬态度，同时也反映了中国国内正在产生越来越多的塑料废物，减少了对进口的需求。

　　But domestic waste comprises only a quarter of recycled inputs to China’s domestic plastic industry, meaning companies will face a shortfall in supply, potentially pushing up prices, according to the CSPA. As a result China’s larger recycling companies are in the process of moving production to south-east Asia.

　　但中国废塑料协会的数据显示，中国塑料行业作为原料的回收塑料中，国内产生的塑料废物仅占四分之一，这意味着相关企业将面临供应短缺，可能推高废塑料价格。因此，中国较大型回收企业正纷纷将生产转移至东南亚。

　　In Luwang, described as a “scrap collector’s paradise” in Chinese media and where villagers have been processing waste for three decades, recycling yards lay silent and empty behind locked gates and most working-age locals have left the village.

　　路旺村被中国媒体形容为“废品回收者的天堂”，这里的村民处理废品的历史达30年之久。如今，大门紧锁的回收场院里一片寂静和空旷，当地处于劳动年龄的村民多数都离开了村子。

　　The local government paid villagers a subsidy worth 30 per cent of the cost of their equipment in return for closing, said Mr Zheng. “Those who had their own businesses before, now have to leave the village to find paid work. They will earn Rmb2,000-Rmb3,000 ($310-$465) a month, compared with Rmb5,000-Rmb10,000 a month before,” he added.

　　郑敏说，为了让村民关闭工厂，当地政府向村民支付了相当于设备成本30%的补贴。“那些以前自己办了企业的人，现在不得不离开村子去打工。他们现在一个月能挣个两三千元人民币(合310到465美元)，而他们以前每月能赚5000到1万元人民币。