[madeofmeat]

A municipal government doesn't have a way to impact anything China does. They're stuck between either doing ineffective things like drinking straw bans, or just admitting their helplessness.

On the national politics level it's only almost that bad: we (the US) have very little way to influence what China does with their trash. It might take Trumpish levels of confrontationalism from a Democrat administration to have any impact at all. Sad that candidates aren't taking on this reality... it's much easier to sell a rosy narrative to voters that we can fix everything by making sacrifices at home ala the Green New Deal or somethimg similar.