By the end of 2024, countries worldwide are expected to come to an agreement on how to manage plastic pollution, a transboundary problem exemplified in the movement of marine debris through ocean currents, and the movement of plastic through cross-border supply chains.

The book Plastic Waste Trade: A New Colonialist Means of Pollution Transfer takes a holistic view of the international waste trade and in doing so argues that the transfer of plastic waste from mainly Global North to primarily Global South countries constitutes a form of 21st Century colonialism. The authors take viewers through the history of the plastic waste trade – from toxic disasters in the 1970s and 1980s through the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal in 1989 – until China’s 2018 implementation of a “National Sword” policy effectively banned the importation of plastic waste and threw the plastic waste supply chains into disarray.

From there, the authors explore both the legal trade in plastic waste and the underground illegal trade in waste, arguing that both lead to devastating impacts on ecosystems, workers, and communities in receiving countries and highlighting how countries that receive waste are often less equipped to process it than the countries that export waste. The last section of the book presents cases from countries on the receiving end of the plastic waste trade, highlighting inherent problems from sociological and environmental justice perspectives.

What does this mean for the Global Plastic Treaty negotiations?

How can the ongoing negotiations at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, address the problems inherent in the plastic waste trade?

The speakers offer a sneak peek into the contents of the book, and deliberate over the opportunities for the Global Plastic Treaty to end waste colonialism.

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