America’s largest trash hauler, Waste Management, Inc, has announced that they are no longer exporting plastic waste outside of North America.

Due to China’s ban on imports of mixed plastic and mixed paper in 2017, and realizing that smaller countries do not have the capacity to handle such a vast volume of the stuff, Waste Management has inaugurated a new policy that no longer allows the shipping of discarded plastic to countries outside North America.

The company reports that it now sells 77% of its recyclables (paper and plastic) to domestic markets, and says, “Plastic exports have dwindled to zero in 2019. No plastics collected on our residential routes… are sent outside of North America.”