Why The World Sends Its Plastic Trash To Malaysia - Cheddar Explores

Southeast Asia has become the world’s largest importer of plastic scrap. Bales of imported plastic shipped in from the US, Europe and China flood ports in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Underground industries of illegal dump sites are rampant. Cheddar explores what's happening, and the recycling myth that caused it.

Further reading:

National Geographic
HuffPost
Greenpeace
Malay Mail
Newsweek
Reuters

Special thanks to Greenpeace and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.


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[TheJttv]

I design trash for a living. I am a packaging engineer. And yet again we are left out of the spotlight. The media is always quick to blame the consumer and the recycling industry but never the companies designing the trash. Please do, I would love to make changes.

[scottwaggoner]

This video seems to ignore the major concern for this problem. China didn’t outright ban plastics, they set quality standards for impurities which the high income nations were unable to meet for a majority of incoming shipments. The plastic they were receiving came with a lot of trash. Which then got send to other countries. It means that domestically first world countries need to do a better job at sorting out recyclable goods, so its a sellable and reusable product that is environmentally friendly.

[TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

Only 9% of trash is recycled? I didn't know that, that's pretty minuscule compared to the amount of trash we create. It helps, but it isn't enough.

[lonelyPorterCH]

They pay them, to throw the plastic into the sea, yay...

Then we collect it at the beach and ship it back ;P

[ggamer]

People then: "Wow plastics are amazing! It lasts forever and nothing destroys it!"
People now: "Oh god we're drowning in this stuff! How do we destroy it?!"

[EmeraldMara]

A few things to add:
1. Not simply 'imported', its a combination of illegal importation and illegal exportation. Malaysia has actually banned these trash somewhere in 2018 but the US. Canada, Japan, France just keep sending to Malaysia. Canada has refused to accept the returned trash.

2. The previous government(Pakatan Harapan)was dismantled due to a coup (a few weeks ago) that denied Malaysia's vote in 2018. The new Environment Minister is from an extreme religious party(PAS) which according to their track record of the states they controlled is...non-existent on environment issues. I have no hopes from this Minister.

3. 55% seems about lower than I thought but this is due to the former corrupt government (Barisan Nasional) pandering to corporates and barely caring about the environment. They also strangely changed the national packaging to more plastic that is absolutely hard to clean (which hasn't been changed since then...) due to its numerous grooves. It's very likely many Malaysians would not clean this plastic packaging even though its a must.

4. But even so, Pakatan Harapan did not improve much of the environmental laws which they only had been around for 22 months...so could be a time factor thing.

[CTCTraining]

Best to keep an eye on this, I’m seeing more articles suggesting that the way to ‘solve’ this waste problem is to turn it into electricity by burning it ... I wonder if anyone else can see the flaw in that plan?

[rhonsliner]

I'm from South East Asia and wow I didn't know this at all, right now let alone recycling imported trash we are still struggling on how to manage our own nation's trashes... I see someone commented say in the end we might sent our plastics trash to space, and I can see that happening soon if we still don't find an effective recycling ways each year we really produce way more then what we can destroy (safely)

[ezequielviana]

You know what they say if you have a plastic problem just give it to some other poor country so it's now their problem

[iDunnoMC]

I thought it said "Recycling Meth"

[yewweilim]

Hey this Yeo Bee Yin seems to be doing a very good job I wonder where this will go
Aaaand she's gone.... along with the rest of the cabinet. Thanks PPBM

[borisberlin]

The ad before this video for me was about recycling! Lol! 😂

[katyoutnabout]

Playback 1.25x speed for normal talking speed

[BenBrawn]

Charge more for plastic products, decrease plastic usage, increase domestic plastic recycling (which means more jobs).

[juliemittel]

there's gotta be a more efficient way to export plastic by boat than just doing donuts with plastic bottles in the ocean like come on...

[anmolkushawaha]

Video clip at 3:42 was taken in India though. You can clearly see the word 'भारत' meaning India on the back of truck

[ashhRA]

Where’s metric? You know the internet goes all over the world right? Just a simple conversion on screen would help the rest of the world know.

[MapleMilk]

My whole life is a lie
The tagline should go:
R-E-C-Y-C-L-E
You can't fix this and neither can we!

[dollproductions]

Whoever designed the clip at 2:14 needs to be fired, that stretched text is unreal

[nonegiven]

Companies that produce a product need to have a responsibility for the end of life for their products.

Companies should be liable for their packaging.