End Plastics
Where Your Plastic Waste is Really Going
February 7, 2025
You just finished drinking from a plastic soda bottle, or perhaps you just emptied a plastic punnet of strawberries, finished a yogurt pot, cooked a steak that came on a plastic tray and was wrapped in plastic cling film.
But you feel OK, because being the responsible, informed citizen you are, you do your due-diligence to ensure that the container is clean and toss your plastic trash into a recycling bin, and walk away feeling satisfied with your eco-consciousness.
But, what now?
For many, once our plastic waste is placed in the recycling bin we feel as though its journey is complete. It will be picked up by local waste management and taken to a nearby recycling plant where it will be processed before being recycled into something new – right?
Well, not quite.
It is much more likely that when you placed your plastic waste into that recycling bin, it was just the start of a much more complicated journey. Plastic waste from the Global North is often exported to the Global South. The Global North can skirt its responsibilities and employ an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mindset that leaves those with less resources to deal with our excesses: plastic trash.
My Plastic Goes Where?!
According to Grand View Research, the global plastic waste management industry was worth nearly 38 billion dollars in 2024. The industry is responsible for collecting, transporting, and processing plastic waste that largely comes from the world’s richest countries.
According to Our World in Data, Turkey, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia accept the most plastic waste of any country, while the Netherlands, Japan, Belgium, and France export more than any other country. That’s to say, highly industrialized and post-industrial economies often rely on industrializing countries to manage their waste.
Once plastic has been shipped across the world, guzzling energy in the process, it often arrives in the ports of low-income countries who are left to deal with the dirty work of processing, recycling, and repurposing our trash. While most plastic waste is still managed within the country that consumed it, 2020 still saw around 5 million tons of plastic waste being traded globally.
What Happens to Plastic Waste Once It Arrives in The Global South?
Once plastic completes its journey from its home port, it is taken to plastic processing plants in the new country, where workers manually separate plastics and assure that they are suitable for recycling.
Since not all plastic is made equal, it cannot all be recycled in the same way – or at all. This means that many plastics that arrive on the shores of the importing countries cannot be processed. This waste is then openly dumped or burned, which are both incredibly damaging to the environment.
In Thailand, for example, only 25% of plastics are actually recycled while the rest is dumped in streams, rivers, communities, or the ocean, according to Wijarn Simachaya, president of the Thailand Environment Institute.
This situation changed dramatically, however, in 2018 when China, a former plastic importer, banned plastic importation altogether. Until that point, China had been by far the world’s largest importer so when it shut its ports to plastics -the market shifted. In fact, that year, Thailand took in roughly 400,000 tons more of plastic waste than in 2017.
But Thailand too would eventually decide to male a plastic stand and on January 1, 2025, Thailand began closing off its ports to all plastic waste imports. In the case of Thailand, plastic waste twas not being recycled at all, instead it was being burned. Burning plastic releases toxic fumes that cause adverse health issues for nearby communities.
“Thailand’s decision to ban plastic waste imports is a huge win for global sustainability and climate equity. It’s a strong statement against wealthier countries using developing nations as dumping grounds for their waste. This move not only helps Thailand protect its environment and communities from the harms of plastic pollution but also forces developed countries to take more responsibility for their overconsumption of plastics,” said Aminah Taariq-Sidibe, the manager of EARTHDAY.ORG’s End Plastics Campaign.
What Now?
Thailand’s move may just be the first step in a larger fight to minimize industrial scale plastic dumping and is a positive step forward in the global fight to end the exporting of our plastic problem.
The move comes in the midst of a larger conversation to ban single-use plastic and fight for a pollution-free future. If you feel passionate about securing such a future, consider signing on to EARTHDAY.ORG’s petition for a Global Plastics Treaty! Then, think and act glocally — meaning work together with your community to demand global change. This could mean writing to representatives at local, state, and national levels or organizing an event that educates others on the impacts of the plastic waste industry!
