Update 19 Jul 2019: 'Not a dustbin' - Cambodia to send plastic waste back to the US and Canada
Containers loaded with plastic waste placed at Sihanoukville port in Cambodia, on 16 July. Photograph: Sea Seakleng/AP
Cambodia has announced it will send 1,600 tonnes of plastic waste found in shipping containers back to the US and Canada, as south-east Asian countries revolt against an onslaught of rubbish shipments.
China’s decision to ban foreign plastic waste imports last year threw global recycling into chaos, leaving developed nations struggling to find countries to send their trash.
Eighty-three shipping containers full of rubbish were found on Tuesday at Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s main port, according to a spokesman for the country’s environment minister.
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'Cambodia is not a dustbin': Cambodia returns 1,600 tons of plastic waste to US and Canada
Cambodia is in the process of sending back almost seven dozen shipping containers filled with plastic waste to the countries they came from: the United States and Canada.
The country’s Environment Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra said Wednesday the total weight of the waste found Tuesday in 83 containers in Sihanoukville, the country’s main port, was 1,600 tons.
Pheaktra said 70 of the containers were shipped from the United States and 13 came from Canada. Both countries are major exporters of such waste.
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Cambodia to send plastic waste back to the US and Canada
Cambodia is sending back 1,600 tonnes of trash to the US and Canada
Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to reject shipments of waste sent to its shores by Western companies for processing. Cambodian officials announced Wednesday that they were sending 1,600 tonnes of trash back to their source -- the United States and Canada.
A total of 83 shipping containers of plastic waste were found on Tuesday at the major southwestern port of Sihanoukville, said Neth Pheaktra, Secretary of State and Spokesman to the Ministry of Environment.
The containers, opened by customs and excise officials, were labeled as "recyclable products" with no labels of plastic waste, said Pheaktra.
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As the waste piles higher in Jakarta's vast landfill, the Western lie about recycling is further exposed
Bantar Gebang is the largest uncovered landfill in Southeast Asia - a vast, 120-hectare moonscape of toxic, foul-smelling waste serving the greater Jakarta region, which is home to 32 million people. The landfill holds an estimated 39 million tonnes of garbage, with 7000 tonnes added daily. It should reach its capacity of 49 million tonnes by 2021, if not before.
Ibu Suki Sri, 52, started scavenging at the facility when it first opened 30 years ago. Back then the rubbish was deposited in a series of craters left behind by quarrying activity. Now, Bantar Gebang from a distance resembles 10 small hills.
Ibu Sri no longer combs through the trash herself. She has become a collector, managing a team of scavengers who in turn hunt for plastic bottles, straws, medical plastic containers (low density polythene/HDPE plastic), shoes, aluminium, metal and tin. Once sorted, graded and cleaned, the trash has some economic value: a sack of plastic bottles can be sold for 5,000 rupiah/kg (US 35 cents). HDPEs fetch 7,000 rupiah/kg.
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Indonesia sends rubbish back to Australia and says it's too contaminated to recycle
An Indonesian customs officer inspects a container filled with garbage originating from Australia, which included hazardous material. Photograph: Juni Kriswanto/AFP/Getty Images
Indonesia says it will send eight containers of household rubbish back to Australia after inspectors declared the material too contaminated to be recycled.
It is the latest in a series of announcements by south-east Asian nations that they will not be dumping grounds for overseas waste.
Indonesian customs officials said the containers of paper from Australia were contaminated by electronic waste, used cans, plastic bottles, old bottles of engine oil and loose shoes. Some of this was deemed “B3”, an abbreviation of “bahan berbahaya dan beracun”, which refers to toxic and hazardous material.
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Shanghai leads battle against China’s rising mountain of trash
Nie Feng used to toss his rubbish outside his Shanghai flat without a thought while rushing to work, but saving China from a garbage crisis now requires him to consult a complex diagram each morning
On July 1, Shanghai launched China’s most ambitious garbage separation and recycling programme ever, as the country confronts a rising tide of trash created by increasing consumption.
But the programme is the talk of China’s biggest city for other reasons as well: confusion over rules and fines for infractions, and thousands of volunteers inspecting citizens’ private garbage each day.
Nie examines a wall-sized diagram saying fish and pork bones must be separated from each other, and from the plastic bag he carries them in.
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Canada has no plans to take back plastic waste in Malaysia
Malaysia says it will send back non-recyclable plastic waste to countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations. (AP Photo /Vincent Thian, File)
Ottawa has no plans to pick up plastic waste that originated in Canada and is currently parked in Malaysia, a spokesman for Canada's environment ministry said on Thursday (Jun 13).
In late May, the Malaysian government said it would send back 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to 14 countries of origin, including Canada, the United States, Japan, France, Australia and Britain.
In an email statement to Reuters, Environment and Climate Change Canada spokesman Gabrielle Lamontagne said: "There are no plans for the Canadian government to pick up waste in Malaysia."
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Malaysia stamps return to sender on plastic waste
A container filled with plastic waste from Australia is seen on May 28 2019 before shipping back to the country of origin in Port Klang, west of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Picture: AFP/MOHD RASFAN
Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tons of plastic waste back to the countries it came from, the environment minister says, the latest Asian country to reject rich countries’ rubbish.
Malaysia in 2018 became the world’s main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import, disrupting the flow of more than 7-million tons of the trash a year.
Dozens of recycling factories have cropped up in Malaysia, many without operating licences, and communities have complained of environmental problems.
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Malaysia to return 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste to UK and other countries
The mountain of plastic includes cables from the UK, compact discs from Bangladesh and household waste from the US
Malaysia has said it will send back 3,000 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries including the UK, America, Australia and Canada.
Sixty shipping containers filled with contaminated waste had been smuggled into illegal processing facilities in the country, said environment minister Yeo Bee Yin. She showed reporters the waste at Port Klang, outside the capital Kuala Lumpur. It included cables from the UK, CDs from Bangladesh, contaminated milk cartons from Australia and electronic and household waste from North America, Japan, Saudi Arabia and China.
Ten containers will be sent back within two weeks, said the environment minister as the country takes action to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich countries.
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Malaysia to send 3,000 tons of plastic waste back to countries of origin
Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to the countries it came from, the environment minister said on Tuesday, the latest Asian country to reject rich countries' rubbish.
Malaysia last year became the world's main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import, disrupting the flow of more than 7 million tonnes of the trash a year.
Dozens of recycling factories have cropped up in Malaysia, many without operating licences, and communities have complained of environmental problems.
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Plastic pollution 'killing one person every 30 seconds' in developing countries
People are dying from conditions caused by living near dumping grounds
One person dies every 30 seconds in developing countries from diseases and illnesses caused by plastic pollution and uncollected rubbish, a new report has found.
Researchers found up to one million people are dying each year from conditions such as diarrhoea, malaria and cancers caused by living near dumping grounds for waste and plastic.
The report was carried out by international relief and development agency Tearfund, alongside the Institute of Development Studies, WasteAid and conservation charity Fauna & Flora International (FFI).
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Thousands of tons of UK plastic dumped across world
Plastics recycling: the problem
Thousands of tons of plastic scrap collected for recycling from British households have been transported and dumped on sites across the world, a Sky News investigation has revealed.
Experts have warned there is "no other solution" for dealing with waste which is now stockpiled in countries as far away as Poland and Hong Kong than to consign it to landfill.
Sky News' documentary, Dirty Business, exposes a system that makes it more lucrative to export our plastic recycling than process it ourselves. It raises concerns the system could be inflating our recycling rates and failing to channel investment into recycling here in the UK.
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‘Traitors’: Malaysian minister blasts importers of illegal waste, vows to return 450 tonnes of rubbish to likes of US, Japan
Malaysia’s environment minister Yeo Bee Yin says the country will fight back against developed nations looking to dump their waste. Photo: EPA
Malaysia will send back 10 shipping containers of contaminated plastic waste illegally shipped from countries including the United States and Japan, according to environment minister Yeo Bee Yin, who labelled the local importers who allowed the rubbish in “traitors” to the nation’s sustainability.
“Malaysia won’t continue to be a dumping ground for the developed nations and those responsible for destroying our ecosystem with these illegal activities are traitors,” Yeo on Tuesday told reporters. “We will fight back. Even though we are a small country, we will not be bullied.”
Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh are the other countries to which the 450 metric tonnes of refuse – which included milk cartons, plastic packaging, household waste and e-waste such as compact discs – will be returned.
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Malaysia to ship back hundreds of tonnes of plastic waste
Malaysia will ship back tonnes of plastic waste after declaring it will no longer be the world's dumping ground
Hundreds of tonnes of imported plastic waste will be shipped back to where it came from, Malaysia said Tuesday, insisting the country did not want to be a global dumping ground. Around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), with much of it ending up in landfill or polluting the seas, in what is becoming a growing international crisis.
China had previously taken a large amount of waste for recycling, but abruptly stopped last year, saying it wanted to improve its own environment. Now Southeast Asian countries that stepped in to plug this gap say they have had enough.
"We urge developed countries to stop shipping garbage to our country," said Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysia's minister of energy, technology, science, environment and climate change, adding it was "unfair and uncivilised".
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Malaysia to return 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste to countries of origin, says importers are ‘traitors’
Malaysian Minister of Energy, Technology, Science, Environment and Climate Change Yeo Bee Yin at Port Klang on May 28, 2019. (Photo: Bernama)
Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to their origin countries, the environment minister said on Tuesday (May 28), adding that those who imported the trash illegally were “traitors”.
Ms Yeo Bee Yin, the Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change, said 60 containers of trash that had been imported illegally would be sent back.
"These containers were illegally brought into the country under false declaration and other offences which clearly violate our environmental law," she told reporters after inspecting the containers at Port Klang.
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Plastic dumped in M'sia to be shipped back to countries of origin on May 28
Energy, science, technology, environment and climate change minister Yeo Bee Yin told the New Straits Times the war against imported plastic waste was about upholding Malaysia’s dignity among developed countries, which have been practising a kind of “recycling myth”
More than 400 tonnes of imported, contaminated plastic waste in Port Klang, Selangor, will be shipped back to their countries of origin on Tuesday (May 28), signalling Malaysia’s effort to take the lead in the global crusade against unscrupulous export of scrap.
The move to send back the gargantuan amount of imported waste also conveys an official stand against irresponsible acts of dumping plastic waste on foreign soil, which took place after last year’s import ban by China when the country decided to quit its role as the world’s major plastic waste processor.
Malaysia was emboldened in its approach to regulating trans-boundary plastic waste movement after it successfully negotiated the Basel Convention to amend certain annexes, which saw government permission being required for the import of plastic waste from other countries.
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Malaysia to send 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to countries of origin
Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to the countries it came from, the environment minister said on Tuesday, the latest Asian country to reject rich countries’ rubbish.
Malaysia last year became the world’s main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import, disrupting the flow of more than 7 million tonnes of the trash a year.
Dozens of recycling factories have cropped up in Malaysia, many without operating licenses, and communities have complained of environmental problems.
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Malaysia To Send 3,000 Tonnes Of Plastic Waste Back To Countries Of Origin
Officers from the Ministry of Environment examine a container full of non-recyclable plastic which was detained by authorities at the west port in Klang, Malaysia, on Tuesday
The U.S., the world’s top exporter of plastic waste, is among 14 countries that the plastic originated from, Malaysian officials said.
Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to the countries it came from, the environment minister said on Tuesday, the latest Asian country to reject rich countries’ rubbish.
Malaysia last year became the world’s main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import, disrupting the flow of more than 7 million tonnes of the trash a year.
Dozens of recycling factories have cropped up in Malaysia, many without operating licenses, and communities have complained of environmental problems.
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'Moment of reckoning': US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports
Activists Mike Ewall, left, and Zulene Mayfield stand in front of the Covanta incinerator in Chester, Pennsylvania. The incinerator brings in garbage from New York, Ohio and other states. Photograph: Hannah Yoon / The Guardian
Residents of cities like Chester, outside Philadelphia, fear a rise in pollution from incinerators after China’s recycling ban. The conscientious citizens of Philadelphia continue to put their pizza boxes, plastic bottles, yoghurt containers and other items into recycling bins.
But in the past three months, half of these recyclables have been loaded on to trucks, taken to a hulking incineration facility and burned, according to the city’s government. It’s a situation being replicated across the US as cities struggle to adapt to a recent ban by China on the import of items intended for reuse.
The loss of this overseas dumping ground means that plastics, paper and glass set aside for recycling by Americans is being stuffed into domestic landfills or is simply burned in vast volumes. This new reality risks an increase of plumes of toxic pollution that threaten the largely black and Latino communities who live near heavy industry and dumping sites in the US.
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After China's import ban, where to with the world's waste?
When China announced it would no longer recycle the world's old plastic bottles, cardboard boxes and tattered newspapers, it triggered a global trash crisis. The search for new refuse dumps is ongoing
The toxic fumes wafting across the small village of Jenjarom, just outside the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, are especially bad at night, when the nearby recycling plants begin to melt plastic waste.
"It stinks, and the fumes hurts our lungs," says Lay Peng, a 47-year-old who lives in a nearby housing estate. "No one can run away from the toxic fumes, that's the worst part." Lay Peng says hundreds of tons of plastic waste are regularly incinerated in an illegal operation just a kilometer (around half a mile) from her home. Her three children, she says, have all developed asthma, and her husband has been hospitalized with lung cancer.
For the last year and a half, Jenjarom has been importing increasing amounts of plastic waste to be recycled and incinerated, putting the village in the middle of a worldwide garbage crisis.
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What China’s import ban on plastic waste means for the rest of the world
At the start of 2018, China acted on its import ban on 24 types of recyclable materials, including recycled plastics, as part of an environmental reform movement designed to deal with its own growing waste problems
After 25 years of importing 106 million metric tons (or 45% of all plastic waste) China refused to buy any recycled plastic scrap that wasn’t 99.5% pure. This move upended a $200 billion global recycling industry and threw the rest of the world into turmoil. Why did China stopped importing plastic waste?
Nearly 30 towns across China had been processing imported plastic waste, according to the 2016 documentary “Plastic China.” Garbage collectors and their families worked under stifling conditions, with various ill effects on their health and the environment.
“Plastic China” was banned in the country. But the rumor in the recycling industry is that Chinese President Xi Jinping saw the film and resolved to change the situation, as part of his grand plan to establish China as a global superpower. Where will all the recyclable waste go now?
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China bans plastic waste imports: a blessing in disguise?
China, the world’s largest plastic waste importer, has thrown the recycling world into turmoil by imposing a ban on the import of most varieties of ‘foreign’ plastic wastes. While this move may seem like a huge blow, it poses an opportunity for everyone to find a more viable solution to the problem of plastic wastes
In 2016, China imported 45% of the world’s plastic waste. According to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, 26% of that waste came from Hong Kong. Other big contributors were Japan, the United States, Thailand, Germany, Belgium, and the Philippines.
Chinese facilities processed scrap plastic into pellets which were used to make a wide range of goods. However, in the beginning of 2018, a major change took place in this global flow when China imposed a ban on the import of most varieties of plastic wastes.
“China’s problem was that a lot of these imported plastic wastes were unsorted or contaminated, which couldn’t be recycled easily,” explains Kari Punnonen, Regional Director, North East Asia, Wärtsilä Energy Solutions.
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China’s plastic waste import ban forcing US and Japan to rethink options
Chinese workers unloading used plastic bottles for recycling at a plastic material factory in 2010. Photo: AFP China Xtra
China’s ban on imports of plastic waste is forcing nations like Japan and the United States to scramble as they look for new ways to deal with their trash, including exporting recyclable waste to Southeast Asia.
But instead of finding solutions, it appears the problem of disposing of recyclables has only become exacerbated, especially with the exploitation of developing countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam, which lack the regulatory infrastructure to prevent illegal dumping.
The ripple effects of developed nations being banned from shipping their scrap waste to China, previously the world’s biggest importer of plastic waste for recycling, have also surfaced in Japan.
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How China’s ban on plastic waste imports became an ‘earthquake’ that threw recycling efforts into turmoil
For years, China was the world's leading destination for recyclable rubbish, but a ban on some imports has left nations scrambling to find dumping grounds for growing piles of waste. Photo: AFP
From grubby packaging that engulfs small Southeast Asian communities to waste that piles up in plants from the US to Australia, China’s ban on accepting the world’s used plastic has thrown recycling efforts into turmoil.
For many years, China took the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, processing much of it into a higher quality material that could be used by manufacturers.
But, at the start of 2018, it closed its doors to almost all foreign plastic waste, as well as many other recyclables, in an effort to protect its environment and air quality, leaving developed nations struggling to find places to send their waste.
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China finally gets serious about cleaning up
A photovoltaic power station, installed over a reservoir, borders flowering fields in Hefei, Anhui Province. For some observers, China has emerged as an environmental protector as it battles to clean up its polluted landscape © Getty Images
Business is booming for Max Craipeau. The Hong Kong-based entrepreneur has seen his company transform over the past 18 months: His number of employees has increased sixfold, and he expects his 2019 revenue to "easily double" from last year. His good fortune is largely thanks to China's decision in January 2018 to ban the import of most types of solid waste for recycling.
China's disruptive move led Craipeau, founder and CEO of Maxco Industries, to shift from trading rubber and metal scrap to running plastic-waste recycling plants in Indonesia and Poland -- with one more on the way, possibly in Japan. China's ban, according to the France-born Craipeau, created "a new order" in the global plastic-waste business and was a "huge opportunity" for him.
Established players in the industry who simply bought plastic scrap overseas and shipped it straight to China were suddenly "lost." But Craipeau, familiar with the more complicated logistics of processing rubber and metal, had a network of contacts that allowed him to establish centers to refine plastic waste. His biggest customer for the plastic pellets they produce? China.
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Southeast Asia struggles with trash rejected by China
The region has seen a spike in imports of mainly plastic waste after China last year stopped importing refuse for recycling to cut down on pollution
Southeast Asian nations are facing increased dumping of waste from industrialised nations, with Malaysia and the Philippines threatening to send back trash to countries of origin. Manila has recalled its ambassador and other senior diplomats from Canada after Filipino officials said Ottawa had failed to meet a deadline last week for removing tonnes of waste that it sent to the Philippines six years ago.
The region has seen a spike in imports of mainly plastic waste after China last year stopped importing refuse for recycling to cut down on pollution.
Waste imports into countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam in 2018 were mainly from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, Belgium and Canada.
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Treated like trash: south-east Asia vows to return mountains of rubbish from west
Region begins pushback against deluge of plastic and electronic waste from UK, US and Australia
or the past year, the waste of the world has been gathering on the shores of south-east Asia. Crates of unwanted rubbish from the west have accumulated in the ports of the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam while vast toxic wastelands of plastics imported from Europe and the US have built up across Malaysia.
But not for much longer it seems. A pushback is beginning, as nations across south-east Asia vow to send the garbage back to where it came from. Last week the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, threatened to sever diplomatic ties with Canada if the government did not agree to take back 69 containers containing 1,500 tonnes of waste that had been exported to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014.
Canada had refused to even acknowledge the issue for years but as the dispute escalated, Duterte declared that if the government did not act quickly, the Philippines would tow the rubbish to Canadian waters and dump it there.
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Nearly all countries agree to stem flow of plastic waste into poor nations
US reportedly opposed deal, which follows concerns that villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia had ‘turned into dumpsites’
Almost all the world’s countries have agreed on a deal aimed at restricting shipments of hard-to-recycle plastic waste to poorer countries, the United Nations announced on Friday.
Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.
Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.
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Long stretch of trash found along beach at East Coast Park
Trash found on the beach at East Coast Park, on May 28, 2019.ST PHOTO: ZHANG XUAN
A 200m stretch of beach at East Coast Park was strewn with plastic bottles, wooden debris and household items on Tuesday morning (May 28), a sight that startled regular joggers and fitness enthusiasts.
Said Straits Times reader Laura Stanners: "It is the biggest amount of trash - and the worst - I've seen along this beach." The 33-year-old banking employee often goes for walks in the park.
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Rubbish along East Coast beach leaves bad impression on locals and tourists
Stomper Wong was out with her family at East Coast Park at around 4pm yesterday (Jun 10), when she saw a trail of rubbish on the beach.
Wong said that this "does not leave a great impression on locals or tourists" as she saw people from all walks of life struggling to find a place to sit on the beach because of the rubbish.
Wong said: "This was located close to the playground, near where McDonald's is."
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