Environmentalists condemn widespread corruption and regulatory loopholes fueling illegal waste trade

20 May 2021 --- The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) have hosted a media briefing to address the system of legal loopholes and widespread corruption allowing poorer countries to be used as dumping grounds for environmentally damaging packaging waste. 

The briefing, titled “Trash Landing on You – Uncovering the Dirty Business of Global Waste Trade,” featured representatives of charities and environmental organizations from Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Malaysia and New Zealand. 

PackagingInsights discusses the event with three key speakers, who reveal how this trade impacts their home countries and what can be done to stop it. 

The findings come just weeks after a body of international activists called on the Italian government to resolve a longstanding waste export scandal with Tunisia. 

Malaysia’s unwanted label 
Mageswari Sangaralingam, a research officer at the Consumers Association Penang in Malaysia, says the country became the world’s number one importer of plastic waste in 2018 after China officially banned the practice on its territory. Soon after, the impact on environmental and public health became apparent. 

“In early 2018, the communities in Jenjarom and Klang in Selangor started complaining of pollution and health problems related to air pollution,” she recalls.

“Investigations then exposed the mushrooming of illegal plastic recycling plants and dumping sites of plastic waste that could not be recycled.”

“Besides the air pollution and burning, our soils and water bodies were contaminated too.”

According to UN data, plastic imports were more than halved following 2018 from 872,762 tons to 333,500 tons in 2019. However, this increased in 2020 to 478,092 tons.

Sangaralingam says Malaysia’s experience and the government’s failure to consistently control the situation indicates the use of false import declarations and illegal smuggling. 

“There are thousands of containers landing in Malaysian ports daily. Our port authorities are still finding falsely declared or undeclared containers of waste, including plastic waste, electronic waste, and even hazardous waste or heavy metals.” 

Sri Lanka’s “toxic business”
Hemantha Withanage, an environmental scientist and executive director for the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) in Sri Lanka, says his country lacks the infrastructure to prevent illegal imports. 

“Our customs processes are not clean. Big businesses import plastics and other waste using corrupt practices. This is how 263 containers were brought to Sri Lanka in 2017, which CEJ was able to send back through a court case.”Less developed nations are being used as dumping grounds for global waste.

In 2017, there was a proposal to sign a free trade agreement between Sri Lanka and Singapore, which would have eliminated tax for many items, including 62 types of waste. It was blocked by various citizen actions, says Withanage. 

However, the country now faces a new proposal by King Spread Development Limited, a Hong Kongese company, to build a “Circular Economy Industrial Park” next to Hambanthota harbor. It would be built by China and put under a 99-year lease.

“They will import many hazardous wastes to Sri Lanka to engage in recycling. It will definitely be a very toxic business,” asserts Withanage.

Exploiting Hong Kong 
According to Ray Yeung, campaign and communications manager for The Green Earth organization in Hong Kong, many nations are being used as dumping grounds for waste exports from the Chinese administrative region. 

A 2018 Interpol report named Hong Kong as one of the world’s main culprits in the criminal waste trade. After China banned imports in the same year, “Southeast Asia and other developing economies became the substitute dumping grounds,” says Yeung. 

“Hong Kong was the second and third largest source of plastic waste in Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines respectively in 2019. In 2020, Hong Kong re-exported 100,000 tons of plastic waste, which is equivalent to sending 5,000 containers to Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.”

Developed countries, including the US, which has long been Hong Kong’s largest source of imported plastic waste, exploit Hong Kong’s legal loopholes and use it to whitewash waste, says Yeung, disguising re-export locations as their places of origin. 

“If any plastic scraps containers are being sent back from Southeast Asian countries, the traders can avoid the higher cost of sending them back to the developed countries. They can then look for another ‘buyer’ in Hong Kong.”

Making and enforcing the law
In 2019, 187 countries voted to add hard-to-recycle plastic waste to the Basel Convention, a UN-led treaty controlling the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another.

Exporters are now required to obtain consent from recipient countries before shipping plastic waste that cannot be readily recycled. It is a strategy designed to curb the overwhelming buildup of plastic waste in Global South nations, particularly in Southeast Asia.Around 30% of UK waste is exported to foreign countries each year, according to Greenpeace.

However, GAIA has outlined a string of loopholes through which the illegal waste trade can circumvent international laws, in particular, a lack of definitions in the Basel Convention. For example, the meaning of “free from contamination” is unclarified in the treaty, as is the relevance of additives in plastic waste. 

Enforcing international laws such as the Basel Convention, which is intended to end the movement of environmentally damaging waste to less developed countries, is essential, says Withanage.

“It is impossible for a single country to eliminate waste trade unless the whole region has a common strategy and agenda.” 

Yeung says the convention has had some significant impact in Hong Kong since its ratification last year. 

“In 2021, the amount of importing and re-exporting plastic scraps dropped 30 percent (9,600 tons) and 70 percent (1,284 tons) respectively between January and March. Hopefully, Hong Kong will no longer be a part of this illegal practice.”

Data transparency, stakeholder cooperation and activist and journalist scrutiny will help ensure laws are enforced where they should be, says Yeung. 

Momentum against the waste trade is evidently picking up. Turkey has recently banned all waste imports following a Greenpeace investigation finding around 30 percent of the UK’s waste (almost 210,000 tons) was dumped in the country last year. 

Greenpeace, however, says the outlook is bleak, and that government policy in developed countries like the UK is insufficient to end the waste trade and its environmental impact. 

By Louis Gore-Langton