That's interesting, do you have a source for that? A quick Google search turns up aircraft, machinery, and agricultural products (and doesn't mention garbage), but I'd be curious to learn more.

> For more than five years, scrap and trash has consistently been the US’s biggest export

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/09/china...

And it is likely to be more as trash is often declared as raw plastic, cellulose, aluminium billets, or "electronic components" to evade numerous bans that China been enacting over the last decade.

This is also why American own material statistics by US ITC is likely a better measure (access to ITC data is paid)

That article doesn't contain the quoted line. However, it does contain the following line:

>Since 2007, one of America's top exports to China has been... trash

Assuming positive intent, it is possible that the article was edited in the five hours since you linked it. However, it was written in 2013 so that seems unlikely.

I was homed onto the link by https://qz.com/82640/china-doesnt-want-your-trash-anymore-an... the quote is from there. Did not notice that it wasn't from the original article.

It probably is by volume.

Lots of otherwise empty containers going back. Makes sense to jam them with junk when the ship has to be repatriated anyway.