On 10th June, Philip Lee in Ireland reported on changes to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste, which entered into force (in Ireland) in 1992, and the origins of which lie in a public outcry following the discovery in the 1980’s in Africa of deposits of toxic waste from industrialised countries. It notes that when, in 2018, China (which up until then had accepted the majority of plastic waste from wealthier nations) introduced a ban on the import of plastic waste. The consequence of the ban was that plastic waste was redirected from China to Malaysia, Vietnam and South Asia rather than any reduction in the volume of the waste. Now Norway’s recent proposal to amend the Basel Convention to address contaminated, mixed, and unrecyclable plastic waste more effectively has been agreed by the Parties to the Convention. The amendment means that much plastic waste will be reclassified and will now require the prior informed written consent of the receiving country. Notably, as the US is not a party to the Convention, it will be banned from trading plastic waste with certain developing countries.
