Tracing ‘Waste Colonialism’ in Southeast Asia

By Zhaoyin Feng, Hasya Nindita

This article was submitted as part of the Global Voices Climate Justice fellowship, which pairs journalists from Sinophone and Global Majority countries to investigate the effects of Chinese development projects abroad. Find more stories here.

For much of the last 50 years, high-income countries have consumed massive amounts of plastic and trash and given little thought to what would become of it. This was largely because it was out of sight, out of mind, as much of that trash ended up being shipped overseas, first to China, and then recently to Southeast Asia and other Global South countries.

But this model could be coming to an end as some of the top waste-importing countries in Southeast Asia have started to ban foreign waste imports this year. Thailand and Indonesia both announced they would stop importing plastic waste in January 2025, in an effort to combat toxic pollution. Malaysia prohibited the import of plastic scrap on July 1, 2025. Vietnam has announced that a ban on plastic waste imports will go into effect sometime this year.

In announcing the decision, Indonesia’s Minister of Environment Hanif Faisol Nurrofiq said in a statement:

For the last decade, Southeast Asia countries have grown into a hotspot for foreign waste dumping, with the majority of waste coming from the European Union, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Economists call this model “cold economics.” With lower labor costs and a weaker exchange rate to the dollar in Southeast Asia, it is more affordable for Western countries to export their waste to the region, rather than managing it domestically.

For countries in Southeast Asia, agreeing to import waste means economic incentives. Traditionally, proponents have argued that managing imported waste could create jobs and boost local economies. The global plastic waste management market, valued at around USD 37 billion in 2023, is projected to grow to roughly USD 44 billion by 2027.

However, Southeast Asia only became a dumping ground several years ago; before then, most of the waste ended up in China.

China: The world’s former largest waste importer 

China started to import foreign waste in the 1980s during its initial stages of rapid industrialization. During that period, the fast-expanding manufacturing and construction sectors had a high demand for plastics, metals, paper, and other raw materials. China then decided to import cheap “foreign garbage” to obtain these raw materials. Since 1992, China has taken nearly half of the world’s plastic waste.

Li Ganjie, then China’s Minister of Environmental Protection, said on March 17, 2018:

However, these imports often consist of low-value waste streams, ranging from untreated organic matter and household trash to medical waste, industrial residues and liquids, and even certain types of used electronics or components.

While some of these materials may offer limited recycling potential, most fall short of environmental safety standards. Their processing can release toxic heavy metals, harmful organic chemicals, or even radioactive substances, resulting in both resource depletion and environmental contamination, which has raised concerns among people regarding ecological and environmental damage.

Toxic and hazardous solid waste brought in from abroad creates a shadowy chain of disposal. Incineration releases gases that contaminate the air and endanger human health, while acid leaching and water-washing processes pollute rivers, lakes, and soil. When dumped directly or sent to landfills, the waste further adds to the strain on the environment. Fu Shihe, a professor at the School of Economics of Xiamen University, argued in the Chinese state-funded news outlet, People’s Daily:

China then started to implement a ban in 2017, restricting the importation of 24 types of solid waste. With the gradual implementation of the ban, China successfully reduced 82 percent of total solid waste imports in 2020 from 2016. In 2021, China decided to prohibit all solid waste imports altogether.

China’s decision led to a surge of imported waste to Southeast Asia and India. According to the statistics of the Southeast Asia Branch of Greenpeace, the Southeast Asian Association (ASEAN) ‘s imports of waste plastics in 2018 increased by 171 percent compared with 2016, and the total amount increased from 837,000 tons to 2,266,000 tons.

What is “waste colonialism”?

The term “waste colonialism” was first introduced in 1989 during the United Nations Environment Program Basel Convention, describing the dumping of waste from higher-income countries into low-income countries. This practice, environmentalists argue, is a form of “environmental racism” and a “historical environmental and social injustice” which not only causes waste pollution, but also climate change.

From 2017 to 2021, Southeast Asian countries received approximately 17 percent of global plastic waste imports, according to UN reports. Furthermore, between 2021 and 2023, Malaysia imported an average of 1.4 billion kilograms of plastic waste each year, Vietnam received around 1 billion kilograms, and Indonesia received nearly 600 million.

Waste volume in Southeast Asia has been increasing rapidly since 2000, reaching about 150 million tons in 2016 and projected to be more than double that by 2030.

As a result, Southeast Asian countries now face problems similar to those in China in 2017. The people and environment are suffering from the pollution caused by imported waste, especially because the imports are often poorly sorted and mishandled.

For plastic waste, many in the region still burn the waste instead of recycling it. When waste is burned, the toxic fumes are released into the air, increasing the rates of respiratory issues like asthma and breathing difficulties, as well as skin conditions, cancers, and other chronic illnesses. Overcapacity in landfills also leads to hazardous chemicals leaching into groundwater and soil, posing other health threats to nearby communities.

Waste is also polluting bodies of water. Seven of the world’s ten most plastic-polluted rivers are in the Philippines, which accounts for about 36 percent of global river-borne plastic pollution. The Mekong Delta, one of Southeast Asia’s most critical ecosystems, is also threatened by plastic waste and environmental degradation worsened by the importation of waste.

“Other countries in Southeast Asia are likewise being harmed by foreign plastic waste daily. We sincerely hope that exporting countries will help us put a stop to waste dumping and trafficking,” says Wong Pui Yi, BAN researcher from Kuala Lumpur, to Recycling Today.

How to tackle this problem? 

For years, environmental activists have been calling for stricter regulations to overcome this issue. They have also argued that a global treaty on waste is crucial to reduce plastic production and improve frameworks for waste management and recycling on a global level. At the regional level, an action plan on waste policy in Southeast Asia could strengthen the commitment to tackle this problem.

To address the waste export issue, the European Union announced that, starting mid-2026, it will ban plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries to safeguard the environment and public health. The OECD is an economic and development organization of 38 mostly high-income nations.

Investing in better waste management through technology could be part of the solution. Waste to Technology (WTE), which converts non-recyclable waste into energy, has started being constructed in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. To support this, the Global North must be responsible for investing in waste management infrastructure in the Global South, Greenpeace insisted.

 

 

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This post was previously published on globalvoices.org under a Creative Commons License.

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