Waste colonialism: The real reason why poorer countries are blamed for plastic pollution

“Out of sight, out of mind” is a typical approach to waste and is one of the main reasons why the waste trade persists. The world discovered that toxic waste was being dumped in Africa and other developing countries in the 1980s, and since 1988, more than a quarter of a billion tons of plastic waste have been exported around the world, usually from the Global North to common destinations like South East Asian countries plus India and Turkey.

Following public outcry and heightened environmental awareness, the Basel Convention, the first global legal instrument to control the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, was developed in 1989. It took three decades for the Convention to also include plastic waste through its amendments, but the Basel Convention Plastic Waste Amendments came into force in 2021.

But why does waste trade still happen? The term “waste colonialism” was coined in 1989 at one of the convention meetings, to describe the dumping of waste from higher-income countries in lower-income countries. It is also referred to as “waste neocolonialism”, since it’s the direct export of toxic waste into former colonial states or other areas on the economic periphery.

Malaysia and India, which are former British colonies, receive plastic waste from the United Kingdom, while Vietnam receives plastic...

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