Developing countries have refused to import garbage one by one. This is how the world tries to deal with its waste.

Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told a group of reporters in May that she would send the worm-infected garbage back to Port Klang, Malaysia, and the rancid milk odor from a shipping container full of waste.

Yang Zhiyuan expressed a concern, which has spread to Southeast Asia as a whole, triggering a storm of media dumping of unnecessary garbage on developed countries. According to Greenpeace, about 5.8 million tons of garbage were exported between January and November last year, with the US, Japan and Germany exporting the most.

Now governments in Asia have refused to import, and for decades they have fed meals to factories that recycle waste plastic. As more and more waste inflows, importing countries are facing more and more problems, namely how to dispose of contaminated garbage that cannot be easily recycled.

Thomas Wong, manager of Singapore-based company Impetus Conceptus Pte, said: "Usually 70% of the goods can be processed and the remaining 30% of the food is contaminated with food." The company crushes locally produced plastic waste and sends it to a recycling plant in Malaysia. And Vietnam. Wong said the contaminated garbage was sent to incinerators and landfills for a fee, but some recyclers "just found a corner and burned it." "The smoke smells like palm oil, so they hide in the plantation and light up at night."

The organization said in a report on April 23 that Greenpeace investigations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand showed an increase in illegal recycling, open burning, water pollution and pollution-related diseases.

When China banned imports in January 2018, it began to have a domino effect. The goods were transferred to Southeast Asia, which was quickly overwhelmed, forcing governments to take action.

Malaysia announced a ban in October. Yash Lohia, executive director of Bangkok-based plastics maker and recycler Indorama Ventures Pcl, said Thailand stopped issuing import licenses last year and could implement a ban in 2020. The Philippines said it would send 69 containers of garbage to Canada. Indonesia has said it will strengthen waste import regulations after discovering cargoes containing toxic waste. India and Vietnam have also announced restrictions.

Malaysian Yang Zhiyuan said that garbage still entered the country with falsely declared goods, but the government hopes to completely stop this trade by the end of this year.

Wong of Impetus Conceptus said the company will look elsewhere as the material is no longer accepted in Southeast Asia. "I think Africa will be next."

(Source by Bloomberg)