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Waste Trade: Asia Pacific

Waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Often, toxic or hazardous wastes are exported by developed countries to developing countries, such as those in Asia Pacific. Since 1988, more than a quarter of a billion tonnes of plastic waste has been exported around the world. If the world is serious about tackling marine plastic pollution, the open trade of plastic waste from rich to weaker economies must end.

Plug the Leak - what's wrong with plastic waste exports?

A lot of consumer plastic waste sorted for recycling often gets shipped to other countries instead. There are many issues behind shipping plastic waste, this explainer focuses on 3 critical problems. It draws from the experience of 3 countries, namely, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey in dealing with legacy plastic waste - the build-up of plastic waste over years, shipped in from other countries, and dumped on developing countries with poor waste management infrastructure.

Why is ending plastic waste trade important?

Source: Plastic Waste Transparency Project, Basel Action Network
World over, due to the unsustainable production and consumption of plastic coupled with limited waste management capacity, countries have been exporting their waste to other countries with lower labour and recovery costs. For years, China was the primary destination for most of the world’s plastic waste and the impacts on its ecosystems, waste workers and other communities were devastating. In January 2018, China’s National Sword policy effectively stopped imports of plastic waste to the country, and plastic waste exports from the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, and other industrialised economies were diverted to Southeast Asia.

Many importing countries are ill-equipped in terms of infrastructure to handle their domestic recycling, let alone that from other regions. Local plastic recyclers end up focusing on recycling easily available imported plastics, instead of developing domestic systems of waste collection and segregation.

As dumpsites expand and imported plastic waste is increasingly co-incinerated as fuel in cement kilns or other industrial boilers, as opposed to being recycled back into plastic, this severely affects the environmental health, social wellbeing and economic development of recipient countries.

What lies ahead?

In February 2022, at the UNEA 5.2 in Nairobi, Kenya, member states of the United Nations committed to a legally binding treaty to address the plastic problem across its lifecycle: from production to disposal. The next two years (till 2024) will be crucial in framing a global, legally binding agreement to solve the problem of plastic pollution; one of the key solutions is to include bans on plastic waste exports from rich to weaker economies.
LEARN ABOUT THE GLOBAL PLASTIC TREATY

Past Events

  • The Plastic Amendments: Are we fulfilling the Promise?

    Basel OEWG-14 Side Event

    Date: 25 Jun 2024

    Time: 18:15–19:45 CEST

    READ MORE
  • Panel discussion: How Plastic Waste Shipments Undermine Real Solutions to Ocean Plastic Pollution

    United Nations Ocean Conference: Side Event (Virtual)

    Date: 28th June 2022

    Time: 13:00-14:30 Lisbon | 14:00 – 15:30 Paris/Berlin | 15:00 – 16:30 Turkey | 17:30 – 19:00 India | 20:00 – 21:30 Philippines/Kuala Lumpur | 08:00 – 09:30 New York
    READ MORE
  • The Global Plastics En’Treaty: why waste trade to the Asia-Pacific needs to stop

    Where: Meetspace A, Artotel Thamrin, Jakarta (map link here)

    Date: 03 November, 2022

    Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Indonesia | 15:00 – 16:00 Malaysia & the Philippines
    PRESS RELEASE

Reports

Trashed – a briefing paper on plastic waste trade in Asia Pacific

In the wake of UNEA 5.2, as global leaders work towards an international legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution, the issue of plastic waste trade is largely ignored. This briefing paper tackles the elephant in the room, with a focus on issues in Asia Pacific, to make a case for issuing stringent controls to protect weaker economies from plastic waste trade from developing countries.

Lead Organization: Break Free From Plastic
Author: Pui Yi WONG
Publication Year: 2022
Publication Month: June
READ REPORT

Waste Trade Blogs

Waste trade, often referred to as ‘waste colonialism’, highlights the power imbalance between economically developed countries of the Global North, typically the exporters of waste, and the less affluent nations that serve as recipients. These blogs hope to distil global and regional waste trade matters and provide an overview of the harms caused by the waste trade in Asia Pacific.
November 29, 2024
The Global Plastics Treaty Can And Must Complement the Basel Convention

November 29, 2024 | Busan,  South Korea — As the fifth and final negotiations on the global plastics treaty continue, experts discuss how a robust Global Plastics Treaty can complement the Basel Convention’s plastic waste trade amendments, for a more comprehensive approach to tackling plastic pollution. On November 29, the Basel Action Network (BAN), the […]

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September 6, 2024
Study by European University blames Global South for plastic pollution, overlooks the role of plastic industry and waste trade

Manila, Philippines— The University of Leeds in the United Kingdom published on Wednesday an article in the Nature Journal stating that more than two-thirds of the annual 57 million tons of plastic pollution comes from countries in the Global South, positioning India as a new plastic pollution hotspot along with Nigeria and Indonesia and stating […]

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August 1, 2024
Waste Trade: A Form of Colonialism

In 2017, China announced a stop on the import of 24 types of waste beginning 1 January 2018. This decision, coupled with the fact that under China’s Operation National Sword, the illegal smuggling of waste would also be monitored, revealed the ugly side of waste colonialism. What is Waste Trade? The practice of exporting waste […]

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February 19, 2024
IN-FOCUS: The Direction of Imported Plastic Waste, a documentary from Vietnam

This blog encapsulates a conversation with Ms. Xuan Quach, the Country Director of Pacific Environment Vietnam, the organisation that commissioned the thought-provoking documentary, "The Direction for Imported Plastic Waste (in Vietnamese, with English subtitles)."

It delves into the intricate layers of Vietnam's burgeoning plastic production and its consequential reliance on imported plastic waste. Through this exchange, we aim to shed light on the complexities of the plastic waste trade and ignite meaningful discourse on the imperative for change, not just in Vietnam but in other waste-recipient countries in Southeast Asia as well.

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January 30, 2024
Fighting Waste Colonialism: Asian Organisations Respond to EU’s New Waste Trade Regulations

Waste trade is often referred to as ‘waste colonialism’ due to the unequal and exploitative dynamics involved in the global movement of waste. The term highlights the power imbalance between economically developed countries of the Global North, typically the exporters of waste, and the less affluent nations that serve as recipients. Plastic waste shipments from […]

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November 6, 2023
180,000 support the call for a ban on EU plastic waste trade exports

Today, the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement, Rethink Plastic alliance, Environmental Investigation Agency, Eko, and WeMove have published the results of their joint petition urging the European Union to ban plastic waste exports to both non-OECD and OECD countries. Over 180,000 individuals have lent their voices to support this call for an EU plastic waste export ban, to […]

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December 10, 2022
We are now plastic farmers

Plastic waste exports can have catastrophic impacts on the environment and human rights, especially the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Plastic waste ends up polluting water, contaminating air, and harming the health of people already facing poverty and marginalization. This is a terrible environmental injustice!” ~ Dr David R. Boyd, UN Special […]

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September 23, 2022
Japan’s plastic waste exports - and how to slow them down

Globally, the enforcement of the Basel Convention Plastic Waste Amendments has been unclear, as members of Break Free From Plastic have highlighted in a panel presentation at the last Basel Convention meeting. Similar questions surround Japan’s plastic waste exports, including whether the country has transposed the Basel Convention rules into local laws, and how it […]

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August 9, 2022
Journalists under attack for their investigative work on global plastic waste trade

On July 27, 2022, independent freelance journalists Vedat Örüç and Elif Kurttaş, were attacked while visiting an industrial area with dozens of recycling facilities in Adana, Türkiye. According to a post on Twitter by Vedat Örüç, the journalists entered a plastic recycling facility with permission from a facility’s employee. They were working on a story, interviewing […]

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May 9, 2022
Waste Trade Bites: Vietnam Waste Woes

In our last Waste Trade Bites, we highlighted how OECD countries* continue to send plastic waste to non-OECD countries. This means that richer countries are sending their waste to poorer countries. This month, we look into the waste trade between the second richest region in the world (EU-UK) and one recipient country – Vietnam. While […]

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