Author: Joshua Doherty

A study commissioned by the Office for Product Safety and Standards into the risks of using recycled materials in some products has found there is a “clear and undesirable circular economy of e-waste plastics”. This, according to the report, is occurring when e-waste is exported to countries where “substantial informal recycling industries exist”. Plastics containing restricted chemicals are then “re-entering the UK and being exported around the globe in a diverse range of cheap plastic products, likely those manufactured in those same countries”.

Author: Joseph Winters

High-income countries have long sent their waste abroad to be thrown away or recycled — and an independent team of experts says they’re inundating the developing world with much more plastic than previously estimated. According to a new analysis published last week, United Nations data on the global waste trade fails to account for “hidden” plastics in textiles, contaminated paper bales, and other categories, leading to a dramatic, 1.8-million-metric-ton annual underestimate of the amount of plastic that makes its way from the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to poor countries.

Author: Adam Morton

Thousands of tonnes of soft plastic that was collected and dropped off by supermarket customers, and has been stockpiled since the collapse of a domestic recycling program, could be be shipped to the US for processing. The Albanese government has indicated it would grant an exemption to allow Coles, Woolworths and Aldi to send the plastic offshore for recycling despite a national waste export ban announced by the Morrison government in 2019. The supermarkets have announced they hope to start a new pilot program collecting soft plastic at some sites before the end of the year, but it would depend on first clearing more than 12,000 tonnes across sites stockpiled in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Author: Bangkok Post Editorial Column

The cabinet's decision last week to announce a ban on the import of plastic waste into the country, effective as of Jan 1, 2025, is good news. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether the ban on this type of plastic waste will be implemented.

Author: James Bruggers

The opening plastics treaty proposal from the U.S. delegation to the United Nations sidesteps calls for cuts in production, praises the benefits of plastics and focuses on national priorities versus global mandates. Critics are describing the Biden administration’s opening position in a United Nations effort to reach a global treaty or agreement to end plastic waste as vague and weak, despite its recognition of a need to end plastic pollution by 2040. The proposal, for example, calls for individual national action plans as opposed to strong global mandates. 

Author: Rachel Chan

SINGAPORE: The partners of a Singapore shoe recycling programme, led by government agency Sport Singapore (SportSG) and US petrochemicals giant Dow, have apologised for a "lapse" that resulted in donated footwear being exported overseas for sale. The shoe recycling programme, launched in July 2021, is aimed at transforming used sports shoes into materials that could be used for jogging tracks, fitness corners and playgrounds.

Author: Karen Laird

A new study from Back to Blue, an initiative of Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation, says current United Nations efforts to halt the growth in plastic consumption and to "bend the curve" on plastics use will not achieve its goal by 2050. Peak Plastics: Bending the Consumption Curve, confirms an "urgent, global effort is needed to stop the flood of plastic pollution at its source," as David Azoulay, of the Center for International Environmental Law, pointed out. The entire lifecycle of plastics … must be addressed by the future, legally binding UN treaty to end plastic pollution, he said.

Authors: Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman, and Joseph Campbell

At a rundown market on the Indonesian island of Batam, a small location tracker was beeping from the back of a crumbling second-hand shoe store. A Reuters reporter followed the high-pitched ping to a mound of old sneakers and began digging through the pile. There they were: a pair of blue Nike running shoes with a tracking device hidden in one of the soles. These familiar shoes had traveled by land, then sea and crossed an international border to end up in this heap. They weren’t supposed to be here.

Author: Jared Paben

The decline in U.S. scrap plastic exports accelerated for the second year in a row, according to recently released U.S. Census Bureau trade data. The bureau recently published trade data for December, allowing Plastics Recycling Update to analyze the full-year 2022 data and compare it with prior years. The data shows U.S. shipments of recovered plastic to foreign destinations totaled 952 million pounds in 2022, down 22% from the prior year. The 2021 export number was down 11% from 2020, which was down 6% from 2019.

Author: Thai PBS World

The Thai cabinet decided today (Tuesday) to ban the import of all plastic waste, effective from January 1st, 2025. Additionally, the import of plastic waste this year and next will be regulated. For the 14 recycling plants located in the tax-free zone, the amount of waste to be imported this year must not exceed their combined production capacity, which is 372,994 tonnes.

Author: Monica Cerbon, translated from Spanish

Some of the companies that received the most plastic waste in the region, most of them American or European, have been accused of damaging the environment in various countries for their treatment of similar products. Interpol warns that this industry hides criminal risks. Only Peru entered 62,100 tons of plastic garbage between 2012 and 2022. An investigation by the Cross-Border Investigative Network of OjoPúblico and PopLab.

Author: Henry Belot

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths have been ordered to dump more than 5,200 tonnes of soft plastic – currently being stored at warehouses across New South Wales – into landfill. The NSW Environment Protection Authority is concerned that huge amounts of soft plastic are being dangerously stored at 15 locations due to the suspension of botched recycling initiative REDcycle. REDcycle announced in November that it would pause collections at Woolworths and Coles after reports it was stockpiling plastic rather than recycling it.