Malaysia a ‘dumping ground’ for Aussie plastic waste, says report
KUALA LUMPUR — South-east Asian countries, especially Malaysia, have become Australia’s dumping ground for plastic waste, Australian media reported.
KUALA LUMPUR — South-east Asian countries, especially Malaysia, have become Australia’s dumping ground for plastic waste, Australian media reported.
9news.com reported on April 14 that investigations by the 60 Minutes programme revealed that mixed plastic waste from recycling bins in Australian suburbs have ended up in dozens of illegal processing sites in Malaysia.
The discarded plastics often end up being dumped, buried or burned, instead of being recycled.
The report said Malaysia had turned into “Australia’s dumping ground, with dire consequences, including contamination of drinking water and air pollution”.
This was despite so many Australians diligently separating plastics from their general waste and putting them in recycling bins.
“Most Australians think they’re doing the right thing when they take their recycling bins to the curb every fortnight.
“But our belief that we’re doing our part for the environment is somewhat misguided: Australia’s plastic recycling industry is largely a con,” 9news.com said.
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It also said that Australia — one of the world’s most wasteful nations — handled “very little reprocessing of mixed plastic”, with the exception of milk bottles and soft drink bottles that have a discrete market.
The 60 Minute programme spoke to an industry waste recycling business operator in Melbourne, Mr Haydn Breheny, who said wastes that could not be sold to Asian markets could not be recycled in Australia.
“Morally, you want to do something for it. But if I can’t get rid of it, what am I meant to do? Eat it myself?” he said.
Previously, Australia relied on China to take in 125,000 tonnes of its plastic waste annually. In China, waste is sorted by hand, melted into new plastic projects, and sold back to Australia and other countries.
But China has stopped taking in plastic wastes from other countries since January last year due to environmental concerns, forcing the global recycling industry to look at other locations to send waste.
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One such location is Malaysia, where illegal Chinese recycling operators have mushroomed and caused the country to take over from China as “the world’s biggest plastic waste importer”.
9news.com said Australia alone dumps more than 71,000 tonnes of plastic waste in a year, and by sending its waste overseas, was “helping fuel a criminal underworld in plastic recycling, harming the environment and the people of Malaysia”.
The situation has forced Malaysia to impose stricter laws on imports and permits for such business to tackle the problem. More than 150 illegal factories have been shut down since July last year as a result.
The 60 Minutes programme also spoke to Malaysian Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin, who said Malaysia did not have the resources to properly police the illegal plastic waste trade.
“I want to send (the plastic waste) all back to the counties of origin… and have to really ask you to solve your own problem,” she told the programme.
Ms Yeo said she did not blame ordinary Australians, who were probably unaware of the true situation.
“But, now we know that this is happening, we need the solution,” she said.
Ms Yeo also assured Malaysia would soon shut its doors to Australia’s rubbish for good. THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT