Plastic waste is piled outside an illegal recycling factory in Jenjarom, Kuala Langat, Malaysia in 2018. Photo by Reuters
Malaysia is the world’s second-largest dumping ground for plastic waste from the European Union (EU), undermining its government’s commitments to prevent the Southeast Asian nation from becoming a destination for detritus from around the world.
Data from the Statistical Office of the EU (Eurostat) showed that the amount of plastic waste from this bloc to Malaysia last year increased by 35% compared to 2022. The EU exported 8.5 million tonnes of paper, plastic, and glass to other countries in 2023, up 34% from the year before, of which over a fifth of its destined for dumps in Malaysia.
For exports of recyclable plastic, Turkey was the largest destination (at 22%), followed by Malaysia (21%) and Indonesia (19%). The volume exported into Malaysia amounted to 283,000 tonnes in 2023, an increase of 99,000 tonnes from the previous year, according to EU data.
In November 2023, EU lawmakers pledged to ban exports of plastic waste to countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from mid-2026. The OECD mainly consists of high-income economies and developed countries, and Malaysia is not a member of the organization.
A report by plastic waste trade watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN) criticized the EU for the continued increase in plastic waste exports to poorer countries, which reached 78,000 tonnes in June 2024, compared to 58,000 tonnes of the same period last year. It also called on the High Ambition Alliance (HAC) countries to immediately stop exporting their plastic waste to non-OECD countries, Mexico, and Turkey.
Malaysia’s Environment Minister Nik Nazmi declared in June that the government does not want the country to become the world’s rubbish bin in the face of reports about the booming trade in legally imported waste materials from the West alongside illicit imports run by foreign gangs.
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