We urge UK Government to end ‘waste colonialism’ by banning plastic waste exports - Environmental Investigation Agency
EIA and 53 environmental and civil society organisations from around the world have written to the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to urge the Government to commit to a full and immediate ban on all UK plastic waste exports.
The joint letter to Emma Reynolds MP – sent ahead of the launch of the Government’s new Circular Economy Strategy – warns that without decisive political action, the UK will continue to fuel environmental injustice, toxic pollution and waste crime in recipient countries.
In 2024 alone, the UK exported a staggering 598 million kilos of plastic waste (equivalent to 60,000 refuse trucks), an increase of 30 million kilos from the previous year.
Much of this waste is mismanaged, dumped or burnt overseas, with devastating consequences for people and the environment. Türkiye, Malaysia and Indonesia remain major destinations where exported UK plastic has been linked to toxic contamination, severe health issues and deaths among recycling workers.
EIA Ocean Campaigner Andrea Dixon said: “The UK’s plastic waste export system is an environmental scandal hiding in plain sight. We’re shipping our plastic problem overseas and calling it recycling, while people in countries such as Türkiye and Malaysia are forced to live and work among toxic pollution. This is waste colonialism and it’s time the UK took responsibility for its own waste.”
The joint letter warns that exporting plastic waste allows the UK to meet its recycling targets on paper while masking the country’s over-consumption problem and undermining genuine domestic solutions – including the development of a viable UK recycling industry.
Recent reports reveal that 21 UK plastic recycling facilities have closed in the past two years while more than 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste continue to be shipped overseas each year. This loss of capacity is being driven in part by policy loopholes that make it cheaper and more desirable to export waste, alongside runaway cheap virgin plastic production undermining the recycling industry. Together, these failures are eroding the foundations of a circular economy and offshoring the UK’s plastic pollution problem.