In reply to pasbury:
> Thought one; what were they doing with it all?
Recycling it into new plastic goods. I imagine they were incinerating and dumping some of it too.
> Thought two; why don’t they want to do whatever they were doing with it all any more?
They want their economy more geared towards producing high value stuff, according to what I've read.
> Thought three; why don’t we do anything with it ourselves instead of shipping it halfway across the planet, thus making a total mockery of the rationale for recycling it in the first place?
It was cheaper and easier to ship it to the Far East. It isn't as daft as it sounds, as we import a lot of stuff from there in by containers, and don't export anything like as much back - so the containers were going back anyway.
> Thought four; what the f*ck are we going to with all the plastic?
One obvious solution is to set up incinerators which can burn it safely and generate either electricity, or hot water for local use. The green lobby, plus NIMBY locals, tend to resist this.