After decades as the world’s largest buyer of scrap materials, in July 2017 China announced that it would no longer permit its domestic buyers to import plastic or paper scrap above a stringent 0.5% contamination threshold, and in January 2018, China’s “National Sword” policy went into effect. This shift created a short-term disruption among exporters around the world, and also led to a rush to invest in new recycling opportunities here in the United States.