Petition for New Zealand to ban plastic waste exports to developing countries; slated as ‘waste colonialism’

Plastic waste for recycling. Photo / NZME

Government officials have admitted they have no idea what has happened to the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic waste shipped overseas to developing countries in recent years, including whether it actually gets recycled or ends up polluting the environment.

The Herald can reveal since 2014, New Zealand sent over 300,000 tonnes of plastic waste overseas - mostly to developing countries with low or even non-existent environmental regulations around handling such waste.

A 2019 study found New Zealand plastic waste exported to Indonesia for recycling was found polluting the environment and in some cases being burned as fuel, with toxins entering the food chain.

Lydia Chai today presented a petition to Parliament’s Environment Committee calling on the Government to ban plastic waste exports to developing countries. It has the signatures of more than 11,500 people, she said.

Chai is originally from Malaysia and spoke about how some of New Zealand’s plastic waste was being sent to her home state of Selangor, where there exist 332 plastic recycling factories - not including the illegal ones.

Customs data released to the Herald shows Malaysia is the top recipient of New Zealand’s plastic waste, just ahead of Indonesia, receiving tens of thousands of tonnes in the past several years. China was previously the top recipient until it imposed a ban on most waste imports to the mainland at the start of 2017.

New Zealand remains one of the most wasteful countries in the developed world - and it’s been estimated the average Kiwi household churns through nearly 1000 plastic containers and bottles every year.

There exists a legitimate global plastic waste industry, as long as the materials are clean, sorted and of a high standard - such as clean plastic drink bottles.

These plastics can be recycled into new products, and in many cases even end up back in New Zealand. The Basel Convention since 2020 introduced tighter rules around exporting low-grade and mixed plastic.

But Chai said in those recipient countries there was little regulation of the industry and much of the plastic exported ended up polluting the environment.

“The only solution is for a full ban on plastic waste exports, not to dump our problems onto more vulnerable countries. That’s not the Kiwi way,” Chai said.

She said it was immoral for countries like New Zealand to argue it had to keep exporting plastic otherwise here it would all go to landfill, calling it “waste colonialism”.

“It is a worse outcome for your children and not Malaysian children, is that right? This is a double standard, I feel it is really immoral.”

The committee also heard from activist Pua Lay Peng, speaking from Malaysia, who said the industry there self-reported and official monitoring was “very weak”.

“Malaysia is really not a place that we can have a space to handle other countries’ waste,” she said, representing Kuala Langat Environment Action Association.

“The waste trade is actually a human rights infringement to us.”

Ministry for the Environment director of waste and resource efficiency Glenn Wigley said New Zealand did not currently have facilities to recycle most plastics here.

If New Zealand stopped exporting plastic waste it would simply go to landfill, he said.

“We’ve gone through decades of underinvestment. It’s been estimated at a $2 billion shortfall.

“So we currently don’t have the right infrastructure within New Zealand to be able to deal with plastic wastes entirely.”

He said Australia ran into this issue recently when it had to reverse a ban on plastic waste exports due to stockpiling and landfilling.

New Zealand’s waste exports have declined in recent years due to a combination of better local recycling facilities and the pandemic border closures.

In 2016, New Zealand exported 49,000 tonnes of plastic waste. This dropped to just over 23,000 tonnes in 2019 and to a low of 15,000 tonnes last year.

The Herald has sought information about what has happened to the plastic that not is being exported anymore but has not received a definitive response.

Industry figures say more is being recycled but there is monitoring to record how much.

Meanwhile, it appears exports are ramping up again post-pandemic, with nearly 8000 tonnes exported in the first three months of this year.

Labour MP Phil Twyford asked whether there was a moral argument to stop sending waste to developing countries, some of which were less equipped than New Zealand to handle it.

“At a personal level it doesn’t sit that comfortably with me,” Wigley said.

“There should be a market for it. But clearly, we’re seeing pictures and it’s not always the case. It’s not a great outcome,”

He said in the medium term they wanted to see an Australasian/Pacific solution developed.

Twyford also asked about how the exports were monitored and any auditing that took place.

Wigley said the waste sector was not strongly regulated and it largely relied on exporters themselves following local laws and regulations.

“We don’t know how much of the stuff being exported is actually dumped and is actually being reused. It is a problem in itself.

“How much of this high-value waste is actually being recycled overseas, we actually don’t know.”

Wigley said they were looking at introducing more regulations for the waste sector next year, including licensing for exporters.

“At the moment, we don’t have guarantees. The onus is on the exporter. So it’s not a great situation.”

The Basel Convention required exporters of low-grade plastics to get consent of the country they were exporting them to first, but there were no requirements around high-value plastics.

Plastics New Zealand CEO Rachel Barker also said she did not believe it was “OK” for New Zealand to be exporting so much plastic to developing countries, but that currently it could not be all handled onshore and would end up in landfill.

She said the plastic waste was actually a valuable resource and if sent to “environmentally-sound reprocessors” it would not end up in a landfill and instead be reused.

Labour MP Stuart Nash hit back at this statement, saying the argument that banning exports of plastic waste could impact on processing plants in Malaysia “doesn’t cut it with me”.

“Respectfully, maybe you have drunk the Kool-aid of the very wealthy owners of reprocessing plants who I would argue place a different value on human life and the environment than we do in New Zealand.”

Waste and Recycling Industry Forum coordinator Barney Irvine said the plastic waste New Zealand currently exported had a “high value” - worth hundreds of dollars a tonne, depending on the market position, so it “would not make sense to be disposing of it overseas”.

Associate Environment Minister Rachel Brooking said it was not appropriate to comment on the petition while the select committee was doing its work, but plastics waste was an issue the Government was “taking seriously”.

“In 2021 we put in place the country’s first National Plastics Action Plan, we’ve taken millions of single-use plastics out of the waste stream (from July 1 more hard-to-recycle items, including 150 million single-use produce bags a year, will join that list), and we’re overhauling the kerbside recycling system so every household across the country will have access to the same recycling services.

“We’re pulling our weight internationally too. In 2021, we signed up to the Basel Convention that restricts the importing or exporting of certain types of plastic waste. We’re also playing an active role in negotiating a global treaty to end plastics pollution.”