Southeast Asia battles flood of waste imports

Abigail Aguilar, a campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines, said: "Why do we need to repeatedly remind the world that we are not a garbage dump? Illegal waste dumping to developing countries should be stopped at all costs. We refuse to be treated as rich countries' trash dumps."

Last week, Malaysia announced plans to return 3,000 tons of waste sent illegally to the country from the US, Australia and Europe among other regions. The nation has already returned five such shipments to Spain.

The waste problem in Asia escalated last year when China stopped accepting imports of mixed paper and post-consumer plastic products on Jan 1 due to capacity constraints and environmental concerns.

China began phasing in restrictions five years ago, and told the World Trade Organization of its plans to halt plastic waste imports six months before the ban took effect.

Before this, the country had been the world's largest importer of wastepaper and plastic. After the ban was introduced, exporting nations began to send waste elsewhere in Asia.

Last year, Indonesia received 320,000 tons of plastic waste, up from 128,000 tons in 2017, according to the nation's trade ministry. The government has not announced any restrictions on imports, and the environmental foundation BaliFokus predicts that the country will soon become the world's largest importer of waste.

In India, imports of plastic waste doubled last year, and the government plans to end them later this year.

Malaysia became the largest new market for foreign plastic waste after the Chinese ban, prompting the government to halt imports in October.

From January to July last year, Malaysia received 456,000 tons of plastic waste from overseas, compared with 316,600 tons for all of 2017, according to the government.

Over the same period, the US alone sent 195,444 tons of plastic waste to Malaysia, more than double the amount for all of 2017.