Malaysia Shipping 3,000 Tons of Plastic Waste Back to Rich Countries
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Malaysia doesn’t want to be a dumping ground for the plastic waste of rich nations like the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia. So they’re shipping the garbage back to where it came from, the country’s environment minister told reporters Tuesday.
Yeo Bee Yin, minister of energy, technology, science, environment and climate change, told reporters that 60 large containers of rubbish had been imported illegally to Malaysia. And now he’s sending all 3,000 tons back.
Malaysian officials have listed 14 countries of origin for the trash, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Britain, France and Japan. The U.S. is high on the list of trashiest exporters as the world’s top exporter of plastic waste.
Malaysia has already shipped five containers of contaminated waste back to Spain.
After China banned the import of plastic waste last year, 7 million tons of trash had nowhere to go. So Malaysia picked up the flack as trash-heaped ships sailed to Southeast Asia instead, making Malaysia the world’s main destination for plastic waste.
Just in that year, dozens of recycling factories have popped up in Malaysia, many operating without licenses. And communities across Malaysia are complaining about environmental problems.