Several developed countries, such has United States, Australia, Canada and Germany, have been keeping their countries clean and sleek by exporting their trash to other, less developed countries with more lands. Their attempt to manage their waste does is progressing, but it’s not an instant solution to their piling waste. So, they dump it to countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The already crowded Asian countries are becoming more polluted and filthy from the waste produced by their own residents and foreign waste.
So, they started to get ‘revenge’. By mid-2019, Indonesia plans to send back the foreign toxic waste to their origin countries. Fellow Southeast Asian countries have implied similar laws to reduce the problem, like Thailand and Malaysia.
Indonesia’s several Western countries attempted to send their toxic waste in containers.
Inspectors found that the containers did not carry items according to its permission, in which they were only meant for clean paper and scraps. Instead, 38 out of 65 containers carried toxic or hazardous materials, according to laboratory tests, and 11 of them had regular trash that was not meant for recycling. Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry found that these materials were shipped from countries including the US, Australia and some European nations.
The waste (plastic) was reportedly to have been shipped for further recycling process in Indonesia and exported back as new products. Indonesia is of the major plastic refuse importers besides China and India. The two other countries have banned their plastic waste imports.
Now, Indonesian officials are tightening their inspection procedures by searching more containers and sending back these unallowed materials to its origin countries. Customs Office in Batam, Riau Islands, have reportedly sent 49 containers that are proven to carry toxic waste to their originated countries as was recommended from the Environment and Forestry Ministry.
A similar case happens in the Philippines. Their officials sent 69 containers carrying 2,500 tons of household waste (plastic, newspapers, diapers, et cetera) back to Vancouver, Canada. Three years before, Philippines court has declared that the import of 2,400 tons of Canadian waste as illegal for it has been mislabeled for recycling. So, the waste imported to the archipelago between 2013 to 2014 were private commercial transactions without the government's permission. Earlier in 2019, Philippines government has also shipped back 6,500 tons of trash to South Korea which were mislabeled as plastic flakes.
Southeast Asian countries has significantly become alternative dumping lands for foreign waste since China, the largest plastic waste importer, closed its doors to plastic imports. Then another big importer, India, followed China’s footsteps. Malaysia, as the second main destination for plastic waste ‘recycling’ after China, returned about 3,000 tons of waste back to its originating countries which includes Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the US.
Waste is a global problem and dumping them to poorer countries under the label of ‘recycling’ is not a sustainable solution. It’s a faster and cheaper solution, yes, but exporting countries will become dependent and used to dumping their responsibilities to other countries, instead of developing their own independent and sustainable solution under an urgency. These bold actions taken by government officials are finally creating urgency for exporting countries to start taking responsibility for their own trash. As citizens, it’s also a call for us to manage and be conscious about our waste.