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Malaysia will return plastic garbage 0:40
(CNN) - Malaysia returned 150 plastic waste containers to rich countries, including the United States, Great Britain, France and Canada, insisting that it will not be the "dump" in the world.
The country has been flooded with shipments of illegal plastic waste since 2018, when China took strict measures against a large recycling industry.
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As a result, Malaysia became one of the main destinations for illegal waste traffic, but its government has tried to fight against that reputation and has returned the waste on previous occasions.
This Monday, the country's Minister of Environment, Yeo Bee Yin, said he ordered 3,737 metric tons of trash returned to 13 countries.
Of the 150 containers, 43 were sent back to France, 42 to Great Britain, 17 to the United States will receive and 11 to Canada.
The government will seek to ensure that “Malaysia does not become the garbage dump in the world,” Yeo added in an extensive Facebook post.
The countries from where the waste originated and the shipping companies covered the cost of returns, the official added.
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China banned imports of plastic waste two years ago, as part of an initiative to clean its environment. This decision caused a domino effect in global supply chains, as intermediaries sought new destinations for their garbage, including Malaysia.
A recent Greenpeace report recorded that during the first seven months of 2018, plastic waste exported from the US Malaysia increased more than double compared to the previous year.
The phenomenon is also developing in the Philippines, which faced Canada for tons of plastic waste last year.
In May 2019, the governments of 187 countries, including Malaysia, agreed to include plastic in the Basel Convention, a treaty that regulates the movement of hazardous materials from one country to another, to combat the effects of plastic pollution throughout the world. The United States was not among them.
Garbage Malaysia