Perhaps inspired by its neighbor China's success in the recycling business, North Korea is seeking supplies of plastic and electronics waste that "can be processed in the port but which other countries and territories are restricted from dealing in," the U.K.'s The Telegraph quoted a North Korea-based Chinese-language Web site as saying.

So I asked myself, what advantage does North Korea have in plastic recycling? The first benefit that came to mind was the offset of the country's extremely low labor cost against the labor-intensive sorting involved in recycling. In addition, the country has expressed its willingness to take in waste that other countries refuse to accept.

The country's disadvantages include the lack of technology, equipment and experience, but that could be solved through a good foreign partner. Logistics is another issue. North Korea doesn't have much processing capacity, and if the regrinds are destined to other countries, the freight cost will dent the margin, versus China's model of recycling waste and consuming the regrind materials locally. But if North Korea intends to use the reprocessed resins to make goods for its domestic market, that will make sense. That way the country could effectively compete with plastic products imported from countries like China.

I suppose that China, Russia and South Korea, which all border North Korea, will watch with caution the environmental impact of waste processing in North Korea.