• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
East Anglia Bylines
  • HOME
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Health
    • Welfare
    • World
    Cycling.

    Thirty for 30 – how to reduce your carbon footprint

    Oven ready social care plan

    AgeUK and ‘People at the heart of care’

    The UK Youth Parliament

    Should sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds be given the vote?

    Shopping for bargains.

    Savvy tips for cutting your food bill

    Templefields House

    ‘Big Bits of Ash Falling from the Sky’: What happens when your home is on an industrial estate and a warehouse fire breaks out?

    Urkrainian refugees at Warsaw Station

    The Homes for Ukraine scheme: really not “world-beating”

    Pirogov-emergency-team

    Norfolk help for the casualties of war

    A group of international students

    After Brexit: another lost opportunity for young people

    Dentist at work

    Emergency! Dental treatment in lockdown

    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

    Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

    Houses of Parliament

    Democracy and lack of accountability

    Cambridge Europe Day Fete

    Europe Day fête in Cambridge on 14 May

    Three Steampunks

    Imagining other worlds: steampunk in East Anglia

    Smiling Baby

    Twenty years: a staggering difference in life chances

    Shopping for bargains.

    Savvy tips for cutting your food bill

    Templefields House

    ‘Big Bits of Ash Falling from the Sky’: What happens when your home is on an industrial estate and a warehouse fire breaks out?

    Urkrainian refugees at Warsaw Station

    The Homes for Ukraine scheme: really not “world-beating”

    River Deben, Woodbridge

    Rivers have rights: national day of protests against sewage dumping

    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • All
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    Sugar beet

    As farmers suffer, is government’s sugar sell-out just to keep Tory donors sweet?

    Preston bus station

    Community wealth building

    Stansted Airport

    Are plans for Stansted Airport signs of a changing world?

    Snape

    The Ore and the Alde: smugglers, a merman and the home of seaside chic

    The Studio, Elstree

    Was dirty Russian money washed in a Herts public lavatory?

    Ukraine border boxes

    Freedom Boxes and Freedom Buses

    Sunak's wife claims to be non-domiciled

    Is the Chancellor’s wife really a non-dom?

    Rishi Sunak budget

    The economic and political consequences of Rishi Sunak’s failure

    Energy producer profits set to increase 40 fold due to energy price increases

    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • All
    • Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
    Duncan Baker

    Council leader appeals to MP to clean up politics for good after claimed death threats

    Norfolk County Hall

    EXCLUSIVE: shocking coup by Norfolk’s Tories

    Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

    Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

    Mr Pecksniff (Social Media)

    Pecksniff’s Diary

    Cambridge Europe Day Fete

    Europe Day fête in Cambridge on 14 May

    Three Steampunks

    Imagining other worlds: steampunk in East Anglia

    Local election results in the East: good news for progressives?

    Smiling Baby

    Twenty years: a staggering difference in life chances

    South Cambridgeshire: will the voters think local or national?

    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Health
    • Welfare
    • World
    Cycling.

    Thirty for 30 – how to reduce your carbon footprint

    Oven ready social care plan

    AgeUK and ‘People at the heart of care’

    The UK Youth Parliament

    Should sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds be given the vote?

    Shopping for bargains.

    Savvy tips for cutting your food bill

    Templefields House

    ‘Big Bits of Ash Falling from the Sky’: What happens when your home is on an industrial estate and a warehouse fire breaks out?

    Urkrainian refugees at Warsaw Station

    The Homes for Ukraine scheme: really not “world-beating”

    Pirogov-emergency-team

    Norfolk help for the casualties of war

    A group of international students

    After Brexit: another lost opportunity for young people

    Dentist at work

    Emergency! Dental treatment in lockdown

    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

    Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

    Houses of Parliament

    Democracy and lack of accountability

    Cambridge Europe Day Fete

    Europe Day fête in Cambridge on 14 May

    Three Steampunks

    Imagining other worlds: steampunk in East Anglia

    Smiling Baby

    Twenty years: a staggering difference in life chances

    Shopping for bargains.

    Savvy tips for cutting your food bill

    Templefields House

    ‘Big Bits of Ash Falling from the Sky’: What happens when your home is on an industrial estate and a warehouse fire breaks out?

    Urkrainian refugees at Warsaw Station

    The Homes for Ukraine scheme: really not “world-beating”

    River Deben, Woodbridge

    Rivers have rights: national day of protests against sewage dumping

    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • All
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    Sugar beet

    As farmers suffer, is government’s sugar sell-out just to keep Tory donors sweet?

    Preston bus station

    Community wealth building

    Stansted Airport

    Are plans for Stansted Airport signs of a changing world?

    Snape

    The Ore and the Alde: smugglers, a merman and the home of seaside chic

    The Studio, Elstree

    Was dirty Russian money washed in a Herts public lavatory?

    Ukraine border boxes

    Freedom Boxes and Freedom Buses

    Sunak's wife claims to be non-domiciled

    Is the Chancellor’s wife really a non-dom?

    Rishi Sunak budget

    The economic and political consequences of Rishi Sunak’s failure

    Energy producer profits set to increase 40 fold due to energy price increases

    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • All
    • Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
    Duncan Baker

    Council leader appeals to MP to clean up politics for good after claimed death threats

    Norfolk County Hall

    EXCLUSIVE: shocking coup by Norfolk’s Tories

    Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

    Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

    Mr Pecksniff (Social Media)

    Pecksniff’s Diary

    Cambridge Europe Day Fete

    Europe Day fête in Cambridge on 14 May

    Three Steampunks

    Imagining other worlds: steampunk in East Anglia

    Local election results in the East: good news for progressives?

    Smiling Baby

    Twenty years: a staggering difference in life chances

    South Cambridgeshire: will the voters think local or national?

    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
No Result
View All Result
East Anglia Bylines
No Result
View All Result

Post-Brexit Britain Fumbles Exports of Plastic Waste

Following its exit from the EU which stopped exporting plastic waste to developing countries, the UK controversially continues to do so.

Paola TrimarcobyPaola Trimarco
July 20, 2021
in Brexit, Environment, UK
Plastic waste mountain

'Plastic mountain' - image by Tom Fisk on Pexels

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

While the EU has started banning the export of plastic waste to countries that are not in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (non-OECD, often referred to as ‘developing nations’), Britain, no longer an EU member state, continues to ship it to these countries.  They include Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and China. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the UK exports some 210,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year to non-OECD countries.

The UK is the world’s fourth largest exporter of plastic waste (£), coming behind the US, Japan and Germany. China used to be the leading recipient of plastic from the UK, but the Chinese government introduced new standards and limitations on the amount they will accept. The main importer of the UK’s waste in more recent years has been Malaysia In theory, these UK shipments are supposed to be sorted and recycled at their destination country, but according to Greenpeace, in Malaysia, “British waste has been found piled up in illegal dump sites or burnt.”

Failure to monitor exported plastic waste

The problem of exporting plastic waste and not monitoring what happens to it is not limited to non-OECD countries. Turkey, which escapes the ban by being classified an OECD country, had until last month been receiving 39 percent of the UK’s plastic waste and 50 percent of its unrecyclable mixed plastic waste. Making that situation worse, illegal dumping and burning of British waste had been discovered in Turkey, polluting local waterways and seas. This all changed when the Turkish government, under pressure from Greenpeace Turkey and other international groups, announced in May that they were banning nearly all foreign waste imports, including 95 percent of British plastic waste.

From the first of January this year, the EU set into force this new regulation on exporting plastics. “These new rules send a clear message that in the EU we are taking responsibility for the waste we generate,” says Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius.

Plastic waste loophole

Karen McVeigh of The Guardian describes how Britain is using a loophole to continue to dump its unsorted plastic wastes in developing countries: “UK exports will now be made under a new system of “prior informed consent”, under which the importer has to agree to accept the waste, and has the opportunity to refuse it.” The UK government’s website provides online forms for notifying and receiving consent from recipient non-OECD nations and at present only bans ‘hazardous waste plastic’ from exportation.

Waste sorting in Mongolia
Image by ILO Asia-Pacific from Flickr

McVeigh adds that “While the UK’s introduction of prior informed consent for plastic waste exports will increase transparency in the notoriously lawless trans-boundary trade, the system is open to abuse, environmentalists say.”

Responding to The Guardian’s investigation, a spokesperson for Defra stated that the government has “pledged to ban the export of all plastic waste to non-OECD countries.” Yet, the government still has not offered a start date on this proposed ban, raising concerns among environmentalists.

Local councils are also unclear about what the ban on non-OECD plastic exports means for them. Councillor David Renard, the Local Government Association’s Environment spokesperson has said, “While exporting our waste was never a suitable solution, the sudden additional responsibility and cost for councils is clearly a concern.”  No longer a member of the EU, our national government appears to be kicking the plastic bottle down the road.

To learn more about Britain’s dumping of plastic wastes, see this Greenpeace report and their amusing and frightening video which went viral.

Previous Post

Book review: This Sovereign Isle by Robert Tombs

Next Post

Time to stop violence against women

Paola Trimarco

Paola Trimarco

Paola Trimarco is a writer, linguist and political activist. Her short stories and essays have been published in several magazines and her stage plays have been performed in London and Cambridgeshire. As a linguist, she works for The Open University and has authored four textbooks. Her political involvement includes work with Ely for Europe and Climate Action Network and as a councillor on East Cambridgeshire District Council. She writes an eclectic blog: https://trimarcoblog.com/

Related Posts

Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk
Anglia

Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

byAnna Damski
May 15, 2022
Lee Anderson MP
Activism

Jack Monroe threatens to sue MP

byStuart Burrell
May 14, 2022
Cycling.
Climate

Thirty for 30 – how to reduce your carbon footprint

byJules Pretty
May 10, 2022
Oven ready social care plan
UK

AgeUK and ‘People at the heart of care’

byAidan Baker
May 9, 2022
Boris Johnson and his cabinet.
Party politics

Our government is killing democracy by a thousand cuts

byRussell Jackson
May 3, 2022
Next Post
Depressed girl crying

Time to stop violence against women

Want to support us?

Can you help East Anglia Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

DONATE

Sign up to our newsletter

If you would like to receive the East Anglia Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

NEWSLETTER

LATEST

Duncan Baker

Council leader appeals to MP to clean up politics for good after claimed death threats

May 17, 2022
Norfolk County Hall

EXCLUSIVE: shocking coup by Norfolk’s Tories

May 17, 2022
Climate change is going global

Climate change now: acting for ourselves and our children

May 16, 2022
Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

May 15, 2022

MOST READ

Norfolk County Hall

EXCLUSIVE: shocking coup by Norfolk’s Tories

May 17, 2022
Pylons at Aldringham, Suffolk

Shock as National Grid proposes 180km of new pylons across East Anglia

May 15, 2022
Duncan Baker

Council leader appeals to MP to clean up politics for good after claimed death threats

May 17, 2022
Lee Anderson MP

Jack Monroe threatens to sue MP

May 14, 2022

Tags

Activism Brexit Business Cambridgeshire Climate Community Culture Democracy Development Devolution Economics Education Employment Environment Essex Farming Finance Health Humour Hymns International Women's Day Justice Letters Local elections 2022 Local government NHS Norfolk Opinion Pandemic Partygate Party politics Pecksniff Poetry Politics Poverty Property Rivers of East Anglia Science Sewage Sizewell Social care Suffolk Ukraine VAWG Welfare
East Anglia Bylines

East Anglia Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.

Learn more about us

No Result
View All Result
  • About us
    • Contact us
    • Bylines Network
    • Complaints
    • Newsletter
    • Privacy Policy
    • Donate
    • Pecksniff’s Diary
  • UK
  • Anglia
  • About us
  • UK
  • Anglia

© 2022 East Anglia Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk

© 2022 East Anglia Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In