BANGKOK (Reuters) – Environmental groups called on Tuesday for Southeast Asian countries to ban waste imports from developed countries to help tackle a plastic pollution crisis, as regional leaders prepare to meet this week in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Thailand and its Southeast Asian neighbors are becoming major dumping grounds for the world’s plastic garbage and electronic waste. Environmentalists now want to see a ban on waste imports imposed across ASEAN.
Major Plastic Waste Producers Must Get Consent Before Exporting their Toxic Trash to Global South
Friday, 10 May 2019
Geneva, Switzerland — Today, 187 countries took a major step forward in curbing the plastic waste crisis by adding plastic to the Basel Convention, a treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another. The amendments require exporters to obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping most contaminated, mixed, or unrecyclable plastic waste, providing an important tool for countries in the Global South to stop the dumping of unwanted plastic waste into their country.
After China banned imports of most plastic waste in 2018, developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, have received a huge influx of contaminated and mixed plastic wastes that are difficult or even impossible to recycle. Norway's proposed amendments to the Basel Convention provides countries the right to refuse unwanted or unmanageable plastic waste.
With six other health and environment groups, IPEN has answered a letter by European Commissioner Karmenu Vella following a former NGO call on the EC to adopt strict and protective limits for PBDEs in articles and waste into the POPs Regulation, so that the EU will comply with its obligations stemming from the Stockholm Convention. In the letter, the NGOs provide additional arguments that invalidate European Commission (EC) claims. Read the NGO reply letter here.