Bruna Alves
Research lead covering environment and sustainability
Huge volumes of plastic waste materials are shipped around the world for recycling, with the United Kingdom being one of the largest exporters. In fact, the UK is so reliant on exporting plastic waste that nearly half of the country’s plastic packaging sent for recycling is currently shipped abroad. Annual UK exports of plastic waste have increased massively since the turn of the century, and even though they peaked over a decade ago, roughly half a million tons of plastic waste are still exported every year.
Where does the UK send its plastic waste?
The main destinations for UK plastic waste shipments have seen a lot of change in the past decade. Historically, China was by far the largest importer of UK plastic waste, until it began restricting foreign waste imports in 2017 due to contamination and pollution concerns. One year later, in January 2018, China’s “National Sword” policy was enacted, which banned the imports of most types of plastic materials. This resulted in plastic waste exports to China falling by more than 95 percent compared to peak 2011 levels. With China no longer a viable option, the UK has had to look elsewhere to send its plastic waste. Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia covered some of the gap left by China in the years following the Chinese ban, but they, too, soon tightened their own restrictions, in order to avoid the booming volume of illegal and contaminated shipments being imported. Since then, Turkey and the Netherlands have become the main destinations for UK plastic waste, accounting for over 40 percent of exports in 2022.Problems with plastic waste exports
Although the UK exports plastic waste to many countries, it is often shipped to regions that lack the infrastructure to properly manage this waste material. While the law states that any plastic waste that is exported by the UK must be recycled or incinerated at a waste-to-energy facility, this is not always the case, as investigations have found that plastic waste is often being illegally dumped and burned in importing countries like Turkey. This poses a significant environmental threat, which has led to growing concerns about the amount of plastic waste the UK exports. The UK government has pledged to introduce tougher controls on illegal waste exports, and to develop more plastic processing infrastructure to reduce the reliance on exports in a bid to tackle the amount of mismanaged plastic waste worldwide. In November 2022, members of Parliament on the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Committee called for a ban on the export of all plastic waste from the UK by 2027, although a roadmap and commitment are yet to be defined.
