The extent of the suspected illegal shipment of waste to Poland, which became known at the beginning of June, is becoming more concrete.

To generate extra income, farmers in Tambon Khok Sa-at in Kalasin have been collecting and separating discarded electronic products, or e-waste, in between harvests since 1996. The practice has often brought them more income than farming. But along with the extra cash came illnesses attributed to prolonged exposure to toxic substances.

In January 2018, China banned the import of 24 types of waste including plastic. This policy, known as National Sword, had significant ramifications for Southeast Asia, as many developed countries sought alternative destinations for their waste. Three years later, what is the state of waste importing in the region?

GEORGE TOWN – As waste from developed countries continues to arrive in Malaysia for “recycling”, heightening contamination risks, questions are being raised as to why we should maintain a policy allowing in rubbish from just anywhere.

A regulatory amendment to the government’s International Waste Shipment regulations means some ‘green list’ plastic waste can be exported to non-OECD countries. The amendment yesterday (29 July) comes after Defra carried out a ‘write around’ consultation process to agree the controls required by non-OECD competent authorities for ‘green list’ plastic classed as B3011.

Poland's government is cracking down on illegal waste shipments and proposing new laws to toughen penalties for environmental crimes.

A nonprofit environmental organization is suing TerraCycle and several major brands, saying the companies are misleading consumers about the recyclability of their products through mail-in collection programs. TerraCycle’s CEO discussed the company’s labeling in an interview. The Last Beach Cleanup on March 4 filed the civil complaint in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda. It centers on recyclability claims in product labeling.

Unread newspapers, corrugated sheets discarded after unwrapping electronic gadgets, tissue or milk cartons from British homes arrive, tightly packed, at Indian factories in a growing stream. They are pulped and remade into fresh paper to meet India’s growing demand for it. Paper waste is sometimes seen as a shining example of how things can be almost endlessly recycled. But it is in fact a new example of a product exported to pollute distant parts of the world, environmental activists say, moving and reshaping waste to skirt regulations.

On 23 July, a jury at Wood Green Crown Court, London found Biffa Waste Services Ltd guilty on four counts relating to the export of waste paper for recovery to India and Indonesia. In a statement yesterday evening, Biffa reasoned that no public interest had been served in bringing the legal action as the case had established that the paper the company sent for export was over 99% pure.

“It’s our waste, it’s our problem”, said Scott Morrison as he announced the nation’s waste export ban culminating in 2024. Not really. It’s a good thing Australia has banned solid waste dumping to the Third World but we have left a gaping, toxic loophole; burning plastics for energy. Luke Stacey investigates.

Last fall, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced the federal government’s next steps towards achieving a plastic waste-free Canada. Since then, several notable changes in plastic regulation have occurred on the federal front. Plastics have now been classified under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999[1] (“CEPA”) as a “toxic substance”. In addition, there are proposed amendments to CEPA currently being considered by the federal government that would prohibit the export of plastics to foreign jurisdictions for final disposal.

The Indonesian authorities have confirmed that imports of secondary materials, including metals and paper, will be allowed into the country with a contamination threshold of 2%. UK recyclers expressed relief at the move and said it would be possible to meet the 2% standard. Indonesia is an important market for the UK, particularly for paper.

The Turkish government is expected to clarify rules and restrictions around the import of plastic wastes later this month with the introduction of measures such as stricter regulatory criteria for the country’s plastics recycling plants. This will come as exports of plastics remain a contentious issue, with some UK recycling exporters reasoning that the export of suitable waste plastic material should continue while other recyclers as well as campaign groups, such as Greenpeace, arguing that it should not be sent abroad.

Plastic scrap trade from the European Union remains sluggish in the absence of free exports to non-OECD countries. The European Commission has not yet amended the waste shipment regulation 1418/2007 which determines how waste is exported to non-OECD countries.

The boy was probably only a teenager. Rummaging through bags of plastic dumped by the side of the road, he was looking for bottles to sell. In amongst the rubbish, were plastic bags from some of the UK's biggest supermarkets, packaging for cheese, ham and beef burgers. Our investigation in March 2020 in the southern Turkish City of Adana found that although plastic that had been carefully sorted and separated by households in the UK was being sent to Turkey for recycling, it was, instead, being fly tipped and burned.

Cape Town - Environmental organisations and groups urged South Africa to support a proposed global treaty/multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) on plastic pollution.