Governments struggle to deal with recycling 

Every country has its own definition of what constitutes ‘waste’. Sweden will claim it recycles nearly all of its waste, but also counts energy recovery from waste incineration as recycling. Wales, meanwhile, reports a high 64% recycling rate, but as it includes rubble, some analysts believe the real figure to be around 52%.  

Palming off the problem

The global challenge of recycling is exacerbated as developed countries often rely on shipping their recyclable waste overseas for processing. This is in part to help reduce costs, and also to mitigate the lack of recycling infrastructure within their own territories.  

While this waste is sent overseas to be recycled, investigations from Greenpeace, The Guardian and the BBC have found that this waste is not recycled properly, if at all, therefore resulting in misleading recycling figures. In 2019, for example, The Guardian found that the equivalent of 68,000 shipping containers full of plastic waste were exported from the US to developing countries that mismanage more than 70% of their own plastic waste. Poor regulation in developing countries means that the recycling process may contain toxic waste, with dire consequences for public health and the environment.

Developing countries are pushing back on this practice. Until January 2018, China imported most of the world’s plastic. But because of concerns around contamination and pollution, the government announced it would no longer purchase plastic waste that was not 99.5% pure. As a result, the amount of the UK’s plastic taken by China fell 94%. 

Malaysia has also sent back thousands of tonnes of non-recyclable waste to countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia, after the country’s environment minister Yeo Bee Yin said that it will not be "a dumping ground to the world".

Without the option of shipping waste overseas, many developed countries are turning to environmentally damaging processes, such as incineration to dispose of their rubbish.