The Weekend Leader - Malaysia to return plastic waste to countries of origin

Malaysia to return plastic waste to countries of origin

Kuala Lumpur

28-May-2019

Malaysia will return 3,000 metric tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste from 60 containers to their countries of origin, officials said on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) said that the first group of 10 containers containing 450 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste will be shipped back to the US, China, Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh at an unspecified date, reports Efe news. 

On April 29, Malaysia sent five containers of plastic waste brought illegally into the country to Spain. 

"We will continue to weed out the imports of contaminated plastic waste. These containers were illegally brought into the country under false declaration and other offences which clearly violates our environmental law," MESTECC Minister Yeo Bee Yin said in a statement.

"Garbage is traded under the pretext of recycling. Malaysians are forced to suffer poor air quality due to open burning of plastics which leads to health hazard, polluted rivers, illegal landfills and a host of other related problems," she added.

Since China banned the import of non-recyclable plastic waste at the end of 2018, the traffic has been diverted mainly to Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. 

According to Greenpeace data, imports of plastic waste in Malaysia have multiplied since the Chinese ban, with Japan, the US and the UK being the leading exporters between January to July last year. 

According to an amendment of the Basel Convention, ratified by 186 countries and the European Union, the export of toxic waste from developed countries to lesser developed nations is prohibited. IANS



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