No matter how well we sort, much of what we throw away cannot be reused.

In April of last year, the European Union joined Norway in co-sponsoring amendments to the world's only waste treaty to establish new trade controls on the dirtiest and most unrecyclable plastic wastes.

A major shipping line will no longer accept recovered plastic and other scrap material shipments bound for Hong Kong, which remains a large market for U.S. e-plastic. Shipping company MSC stopped accepting scrap cargo headed to China and Hong Kong as of June 1. | Fomin Roman/Shutterstock.

As Africa Drowns in Garbage, the Plastics Business Keeps Booming. A woman takes a break from collecting waste to read the newspaper at the Dandora municipal dump site in Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 15, 2020. Photo: Khadija Farah for The Intercept.

In just two short years, the world has awoken to the hidden, harsh realities of the plastic waste trade that is called “recycling.” More than 100 investigations and reports have shown serious environmental and social harms in receiving countries. In the recent “Plastic Wars,” FRONTLINE and NPR showed plastic waste from the United States (U.S.) dumped and burned in Indonesian communities in 2019. Making climate change worse, millions of tons of carbon have been emitted in shipping U.S. plastic waste to far frontiers where the reports show that the plastic waste may not have actually been recycled.

A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations

Workers stand over piles of used white plastic food containers at a construction site in Hefei, in eastern China's Anhui province STR/Getty.

'Canadians would be ... shocked,' expert says as Marketplace poses as fake company to expose illegal recycling.

Armed with gloves, rubber boots and a rake, "Mangrove Warrior" Willer Gualva, 68, comes to Freedom Island in the Philippines almost every day to stop it being engulfed by trash.

SELANGOR, Malaysia — Follow the stench and you will find them: flaming heaps of dirty plastic, gushing black smoke, bringing death to a place otherwise teeming with life.

On May 28, 2019, Malaysia's environment minister announced that they are sending 3,000 metric tons of contaminated plastic wastes back to their countries of origin, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Along with the Philippines, which is sending 2,400 tons of illegally exported trash back to Canada, Malaysia highlights how controversial the global trade in plastic trash has become.