Over the years, some developed countries have long exported their solid waste to developing countries due to consideration of treatment costs and other factors. However, with the improvement of public awareness of environmental protection, developing countries have begun to say "no" to this kind of "dumping the pan" behavior of developed countries. Recently, an "environmental protection war" on "foreign garbage" has been launched in many countries. "We should deal with our own garbage" is also becoming a broad consensus in developing countries.

Malaysian government workers display plastic waste in Port Klang, Malaysia, May 28, 2019. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Zhang Wenzong)

"Foreign waste" becomes an international problem, developing countries are overwhelmed

Why is the fight against "foreign waste" a battle? Several statistics are shocking:

The world produces about 300 million tons of plastic every year;

By 2050, solid waste produced by humans is expected to reach 3.4 billion tons;

Developed countries, which account for only 16% of the world's population, produce 34% of the world's waste.

How to deal with the huge amount of garbage? Many developed countries choose to "clean themselves" and export solid waste to developing countries. Statistics show that in 2018, Germany, the United States and Japan each exported more than 1 million tons of plastic waste, and the United States exported 157,000 large containers containing plastic waste to developing countries.

While garbage exports can bring some economic benefits to the recipient countries, they impose huge social and environmental costs on them. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, waste disposal in a small town has polluted water sources, withered crops and sickened people.

Boycott of "foreign garbage" has reached a consensus, and countries have demonstrated their determination to strike hard

Because "foreign garbage" has brought serious harm to the ecological environment and people's health in developing countries, countries have begun to strike hard and say "no" to "foreign garbage".

In May this year, Malaysia announced that it would send 450 tons of imported garbage back to Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States and other places.

In June, the Philippines insisted on sending 69 containers containing illegally imported garbage back to Canada at the cost of a "diplomatic war".

Recently, Indonesia and Cambodia have also said that they will return a large number of containers filled with "foreign garbage" one after another, refusing to become "dumping grounds" for developed countries.

On July 12, 2019, local time in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Indonesian demonstrators placed a "plastic fish" device made of garbage around the office of the US Consulate General in Surabaya to protest the export of garbage by the United States to Indonesia.

In addition, since last year, some Southeast Asian countries have enacted laws one after another to put legal shackles on "foreign garbage". The Thai government has announced that it will ban the import of plastic waste by 2021. The Vietnamese government also said it would stop issuing new waste import permits.

To solve the problem of "foreign garbage", we must start from the source.

Environmental rights and interests are an important part of a country's sovereign rights and interests. Shifting the responsibility of garbage disposal is not only against international rules, but also against international morality.

It is the right of developing countries to refuse to accept "foreign garbage". As early as the late 1980s, the international community adopted the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, aimed at protecting the environmental interests of developing countries. The Convention fully recognizes the right of each country to prohibit the entry of foreign hazardous wastes and other wastes into its territory.

Tackling the problem of foreign waste at its source is the only way to solve the problem. As exporters and major producers of "foreign garbage", developed countries should assume more responsibilities and obligations to reduce, treat and digest the garbage they generate.

As Malaysia's Energy and Environment Minister Yeo Mei Ying said, developed countries should stop shipping waste to developing countries because it is "unfair" and "uncivilized". (Source: From Xinhuanet.com, CCTV.com, People's Daily Overseas Edition, etc.)

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