Introduction
In 2018, China implemented their "National Sword " banning imports of plastic waste to protect their environment and develop their own domestic recycling capacity. Since exporting plastic waste is a convenient way for high-income countries to avoid disposal costs and impacts at home, while counting them as “recycled” there has recently been a significant redirection of plastic waste shipments to other countries that are not equipped to safely and securely manage it.
Much of this redirection has unfortunately been hidden from the public and the world as municipalities, industries and have largely been able to operate anonymously and without accountability. This website has been created to provide the this much needed transparency.
Improving the transparency and reporting of the waste trade is sorely needed to reduce the unsustainable and often illegal trafficking of plastic pollution and being to hold exporters, importers, shipping lines and countries involved in the plastic waste trade fully accountable.
At this time, one of the most credible sources of plastic waste data publicly available is derived from the official government trade customs data published monthly by individual countries and later compiled by the United Nations Comtrade database. The Harmonized System (HS) trade code for most plastic waste (officially called “waste, paring and scrap”) is HS 3915. The trade data is typically published after a time lag of about one to two months. The Comtrade data is also supplemented by individual country waste trade data that is published earlier and has additional details, such as plastic waste export by state.
To provide Key Messages and Key Metrics on a Global and Country basis, our experts continually analyze the latest updates from country and U.N. Comtrade databases. Check back on a regular basis for the latest updates. Additionally, you can sign-up for our Plastic Waste Transparency Project Newsletter.
