The following article is from the “The Ecologist Organization” about the final destination of some wastes, and, the read for you series, will be part of the PIMI articles from now on. We spare the time to read for you. The plastics wastes have been being a great problem for the human kind since a decade ago. PIMI is trying to collect news and articles from valuable sources and select the best ones for readers according to stats from feedback. The following article is from the “The Ecologist Organization” about the final destination of some wastes.
The post consumer packaging that countries like UK and Australia collect and then export is ending up in locations like Malaysia where it is expected to be recycled. In some cases the recycling factories that I have visited do an excellent job with difficult material. In other cases it seems that low quality or residues from recycling are not being treated correctly. The ban will affect the livelihood well organised industries that have contributed to high quality recycling services for many years. The quality and approved destination of these materials and any residues needs to be carefully validated to prevent the negative impacts of illegal and damaging dumping of these materials.
Packaging from everyday British products – exported as recycling – has been discarded at multiple illegal dump sites in Malaysia, an Unearthed investigation has found.
The revelations come as the Environment Agency in the UK is embarking on a major investigation into claims of fraud in the UK’s recycling exports system, including allegations that exported UK plastic waste is not being recycled.
UK exports of plastic scrap for recycling to Malaysia shot up at the start of this year, after China – previously the world’s largest importer of the materials – closed its doors to such imports. But the sudden deluge of plastics from the UK and other western countries has left Malaysia’s recycling system struggling to cope.
Recycling factories
Investigating conditions in the Malaysian waste industry earlier this month, Unearthed found brands familiar to UK supermarket shelves strewn across a vast pile of rubbish standing 10 feet tall on a site measuring nearly three acres.
The dump, surrounded by a palm oil plantation, was outside the town of Jenjarom, about an hour’s drive from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Packaging for Fairy dishwasher tablets, Yeo Valley yoghurt and Tesco Finest crisps was scattered across the pile, alongside plastics from Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan and Australia. Use-by dates indicated the packaging was left there in recent months.
In an adjoining recycling facility that was shut down months ago, Unearthed found ripped-open recycling bags from UK local authorities discarded among a huge pile of plastic bags, alongside yet more food packaging from the UK and across Europe.
Residents in the area have complained that fumes from recycling factories operating without the correct permits have kept them awake at night and left them concerned about the effect on their health.
Baked beans
In nearby Klang, home to Malaysia’s largest port and the entry point for most imports, Greenpeace investigators found sacks of discarded European and British plastics in a largely abandoned industrial complex, where piles of rubbish are routinely dumped and burned by the roadside, billowing acrid clouds of smoke.
And in Ipoh, about 140 miles to the north, Greenpeace investigators found Tescos carrier bags and packaging for McCain’s oven chips, Yazoo yoghurt drink, and Heinz baked beans, alongside Australian household plastics and factory offcuts piled 20ft high. Milk bottles and shreds of bags floated in stagnant pools of water at the feet of the piles. Satellite imagery shows the dump has mushroomed in the past year.
Mary Creagh, Labour MP and chair of the environmental audit committee, said: “These shocking pictures show that when we throw things away, there is no such thing as away.
The article’s title is: UK plastics found in Malaysia’s illegal dumps. Please the main article from the “SOURCE“.
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