To Southeast Asia: A Dumpster for Developed Countries Da Eun Jung

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BY DA EUN JUNG

Every year, a total of 2.12 billion tons of waste is produced globally. This is enough to fill tens of thousands of trucks; if these trucks were lined up, they would circle around the globe two dozen times. The amount of waste we produce — not just plastic but of everything not recycled or recyclable — is astronomical and directly contributes to climate change.

Even though we might never see our trash after we throw it out, 2.12 billion tons worth of waste has to end up somewhere. For decades, this “somewhere” was China. It was the trash dumping ground for high-income countries until it finally shut its borders to waste in 2018.

© SergeyZavalnyuk—iStock/Getty Images

Now, these high-income countries are sending their waste to Southeast Asia. But these countries also don't want their junk, making these shipments illegal. Not only does this destroy these countries’ environments and damage their people’s health, but this action also makes it clear that not all countries are viewed as equal in the eyes of high-income countries.

China’s policy that triggered it all

In January 2018, China implemented the “National Sword” policy. This effectively banned the import of recyclable objects like plastic to address the overwhelming amount of contaminated and non-processable materials that flowed into the

country. “Recyclable” trash usually ended up in landfills and/or harmed China’s environment.

Given that China had been importing over half of the world’s recyclable waste before, countries everywhere faced a problem: what should they do with their trash?

How high-income countries have tried to address the problem

Many countries, especially high-income ones, do not have recycling facilities that can support the amount of recyclable waste they produce at an affordable cost. Recycling facilities in the United States, for example, just can’t operate with the same profit margins without charging cities more for their services post-“National Sword” policy implementation. Not wanting to raise taxes or cut other programs for recycling services, some cities have decided to stop collecting certain types of recyclable materials. Other cities have started to burn waste for energy instead, releasing more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, into the air.

Rather than attempting to improve domestic recycling facilities, the U.S. and other high-income countries have turned toward an alternative solution to their problem: finding other countries to export their recyclable waste.

In the six months after China stopped importing foreign waste, the U.S. shipped about half of its plastic waste to Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Other high-income countries followed suit, turning this region of the world into the new global waste dumpsite.

Pushback from the “rubbish bin” countries

In response to the unwanted trash flowing into their territories, Southeast Asian countries have been pushing back against high-income countries like the U.S. and those in the European Union.

Between mid-2019 and early 2020, Malaysia returned more than 150 ships full of waste to its 13 owners, including the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Since passing policies similar to China’s “National Sword” to ban plastic waste import, Malaysia has started to send illegal shipments of waste back to its origin. Other countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have also taken similar initiatives to address the situation.

The underlying power dynamic between high and low-income countries

High-income countries’ act of shipping unwanted waste products to these low-income Southeast Asian countries is problematic on many levels. Some of the waste is toxic or otherwise not recyclable due to contamination by other types of waste. Thus, these countries are environmentally harmed as this trash is being put into landfills. The health of people living in these countries is also compromised by actions like the illegal burning of this waste to handle the overwhelming volume of trash, which creates poisonous fumes.

The current relationship between the countries that are shipping such waste illegally and the countries that have to deal with the negative consequences associated with these dumps signifies a more troubling issue of an unequal power balance. This issue is reproducing the always-existing, implicitly-propagated understanding that Southeast Asia and its people are somehow inferior to the “developed” countries. In reality, these “developed” countries have historically had the most economic and social advantages, which they now leverage to keep their status and position.

Although the Southeast Asian countries struggling with this trash dump phenomenon are now independent nations, they have a long history of Western colonization. That they need to fight to maintain their environmental, health, and social status on the world stage because of the actions of high-income countries (which include many of these once-colonizing countries) suggests that these Southeast Asian countries are not seen as equals.

Re: Pushback from the “rubbish ban” countries

Fortunately, change has been occurring. Western countries are becoming more conscious of their actions. The reduction of plastic has been occur

Photographed by Alexandra Gavillet

ring on a global scale.

Although the U.S. government has not acted significantly on a federal level, progressive cities like San Francisco and Seattle have implemented policies to reduce plastic usage. Individual companies like Trader Joe’s have taken the pledge to reduce plastic packaging too. In other countries, national-level action plans have been created and implemented to control plastic waste, increase recycling, and reduce micro- and single-use plastic usage.

If these efforts materialize into actual change, the future may look hopeful. While plastic waste will most likely continue to exist to some extent, maybe its volume will decrease enough so that other countries don’t have to be burdened by the consumption of privileged countries.