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Tuesday, April 23, 2019, 10:14
Dumping plastic waste in Asia found destroying crops and health
By Reuters
Tuesday, April 23, 2019, 10:14 By Reuters

In this undated photo, waste is seen on the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. (PHOTO / VIET NAM NEWS)

KUALA LUMPUR — The world's recyclable plastic is being shipped to Asia where it is illegally dumped, buried or burned in the country with the lightest regulations, environmentalists warned on Tuesday calling for greater transparency in the global waste trade. 

A report by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Greenpeace East Asia analysed the top 21 exporters and importers of plastic recyclable waste from 2016 until 2018. 

For the first world, it makes them feel good about their waste supposedly being recycled but in reality it ends up in countries that cannot deal with the waste

Beau Baconguis, a plastics campaigner at GAIA in Manila

It found that plastic waste imports into Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam jumped from mid-2017 to early 2018, leading to illegal operations dumping and open-burning, contaminating water supplies, killing crops and causing respiratory illnesses. 

"For the first world, it makes them feel good about their waste supposedly being recycled but in reality it ends up in countries that cannot deal with the waste," said Beau Baconguis, a plastics campaigner at GAIA in Manila. 

"So the pollution is heading south to countries that do not have that capacity," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

READ MORE: Chinese taking action to tackle plastic waste

As pollution and environmental damage linked to the rise in plastic waste became known in countries like Malaysia and Thailand during 2018, protests led to tighter waste regulations and import restrictions by authorities, the study found. 

Large volumes of plastic waste then diverted to other countries in the region, like Indonesia and India, where regulations on the waste trade are more lenient, the study said. 

"Once one country regulates plastic waste imports, it floods into the next un-regulated destination," said Kate Lin, a Hong Kong based campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia. 

ALSO READ: Swamped with plastic waste: Malaysia struggles as global scrap piles up

"It's a predatory system, but it's also increasingly inefficient," she said. "Each new iteration shows more and more plastic going off grid - where we can't see what's done with it - and that's unacceptable." 

In this May 5, 2014, photo, a worker stands near piles of plastic waste to recycle in Ampang, in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. (MOHD RASFAN / AFP)

The top exporters of plastic waste analysed for the report included the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan. 

Members of the Basel Convention, the main global pact regulating the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste, will meet in Geneva from April 29 and decide on a proposal from Norway to create greater transparency in plastic waste trade. 

If adopted, any plastic waste exporters would be required to obtain prior approval from an importing country, and give more detailed information on the volume and type of waste. 

Greenpeace's Lin welcomed the proposal but urged consumer goods companies to reduce the single-use plastics they produce. 

"It is a good step but definitely not a final solution," Lin said. 

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