Our plastic is becoming Malaysia’s problem – Nita Blake-Persen investigates what really happens to the waste we’re shipping overseas to be recycled.
Source: NZ’s role in the Malaysian plastics dumping ground | RNZ
As night falls in Malaysia, plumes of toxic smoke begin to waft across the across the town of Jenjarom.
Nearby residents wake to the smell of burning plastic that seeps into their homes – closing the doors and windows doesn’t help.
The smell, and the accompanying headaches and coughing, have become familiar for them in recent months, as more and more illegal plastic recycling factories have popped up in the area.
About an hour’s drive from the capital Kuala Lumpur, the town has been traditionally focused on agriculture, with palm oil plantations lining most roads.
But these days the factories, which recycle thousands of tonnes of waste from countries all around the world, are doing a roaring trade.
If countries had landfill-biodegradable plastic waste they would not need to be exporting it to countries and causing all these problems over there. Biogone offers plastics that will biodegrade away over time to basic components like humus. We should no longer be producing single use plastic items that have no end of life designed into them. That is quite irresponsible and putting the true cost on to others.
