150 ship containers of illegally exported waste in Malaysia. Now go back to their countries of origin in Europe and North America.

Return to sender: plastic waste in the port of Port Klang, Malaysia photo: ap

BUTTERWORTH afp | Malaysia does not want to be the "garbage dump of the world" and has re-loaded ship containers of illegally exported plastic waste in the countries of origin back. Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said on Monday in the port city of Butterworth, 150 containers with a total of 3737 tons of waste were traveling around France, the UK, the USA and Canada. 110 more would soon follow, 60 of them in the United States.

Already in the past year, Malaysia had sent multiple containers with plastic garbage back. China, which had been imported for a long time much of the plastic waste for recycling purposes, decided by 2018, processing of used plastic from other countries to improve its own environmental balance sheet. Since then, large amounts of Plastic to be brought to Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, the import of plastic waste from 2016 to 2019 has tripled.

environment Minister Yeo said on Monday, Malaysia will not waver in the "war against pollution, and plastic waste." Your country will pay for the return of garbage "not a Cent," she assured, and this cost would assume the shipping companies and countries of origin. "When people dump their garbage at us, then we don't have to pay for it, that we send him back."

Indonesia and the Philippines had sent in the past year, the public waste-to-back. Environmental activists in Malaysia are asking the government needs to waste the Import of Plastic completely prohibit. The return of unsorted waste is not sufficient by far to solve the garbage Problem. The Import of clean, sorted plastic waste for the Recycling industry, for example, is allowed.