According to Greenpeace research, German plastic waste is still illegally dumped abroad. The exported waste is evidence of the scarce recycling capacities in countries such as Malaysia and Turkey. According to experts, there is only one way to prevent this in the long term.
According to the findings of the environmental protection organization Greenpeace, German plastic waste is still disposed of illegally abroad. According to the environmental organization, they randomly examined 53 deliveries of plastic waste using hidden tracking devices. 14 of these deliveries went abroad, mainly to Turkey and countries in Southeast Asia.
With the hidden tracking devices, Greenpeace was able to secretly track the transport routes of plastic waste from Germany in 2021 and 2022. “If a third of our random samples end up abroad, including several cases of illegal exports, then this problem is even greater,” summarized Jakob Kluchert from the Greenpeace investigative team in Hamburg. One of the examined shipments of mixed plastic waste was sent to Turkey by a German recycling company. According to Greenpeace, however, the import of non-recyclable mixed plastic is banned in Turkey.
Further deliveries of garbage also ended up in a garbage plant in Southeast Asian Malaysia. According to the environmental protection organization, the garbage delivered there pollutes the water, among other things. Hard plastic, which was contaminated with the pollutant bromine, was also exported to Malaysia. “The cases show that Germany has to properly recycle its waste in its own country instead of exporting its waste,” Kluchert explained. In the long term, the only thing that will help is to drastically reduce plastic consumption.