In May, 187 countries came together to take concrete action to address the plastic crisis. This important new rule will empower countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, to stop a flood of plastic waste from reaching their shores. While it can often take the global community years — even decades — to come to an agreement, it took countries less than a year to adopt this new decision under the Basel Convention. This is a story of where collective action and international governance meet to address an environmental crisis of growing global concern: plastic.
Every two years, countries gather together at the “BRS Triple COP” — the meeting of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions, a set of treaties that govern global chemical and waste safety. But this year’s meeting was no ordinary one, as leaders of the world finally acted to stop plastic waste dumping.
Plastic Waste Dumping in the Wake of China’s National Sword Policy
Today, a lot of the plastic waste developed countries produce isn’t dealt with where it’s thrown in the trash. Instead, it’s exported under the guise of being recycled elsewhere. Most of this exported plastic waste is mixed or contaminated plastic, which is difficult or impossible to recycle, even in high-tech facilities. The result is a massive transfer of plastic waste from developed to developing countries that have no capacity to sustainably manage them.
In January 2018, China decided to ban imports of plastic waste. As the biggest importer of plastic waste in the world, this decision had tremendous consequences. Countries began exporting plastic to other destinations, particularly Southeast Asian countries that don’t have the capacity to safely manage the massive amounts of plastic waste now entering their borders.
Several countries are following China’s lead. For example, Malaysia and Vietnam have suspended the issue of import licenses to restrict the flow of waste into the country, and Thailand has ordered a temporary prohibition of plastic waste imports. Yet it’s not enough to completely tackle this plastic waste flood.
But isn’t plastic recyclable? Why is this such a problem? While recycling is touted as a solution to plastic, only nine percent of plastic waste has been recycled historically. Because of the low cost of oil (thanks in part to fossil fuel subsidies), it’s much cheaper to produce virgin plastic, and it makes no economic sense to recycle. So, it’s less expensive and easier to just dump it. And better to dump it on developing countries’ beaches than on ours, right? Since those countries don’t have a way to safely handle this plastic waste, it often ends up being burned, releasing dioxins in the air and leaving hazardous ashes behind, or dumped into the environment, where it fragments into microplastic. Mismanaged plastic waste then pollutes the food chain, adding toxic chemicals into food we eat.
No More Dumping: Enter the Norwegian Amendments
In the wake of the Chinese ban, momentum began to build to take big steps to address the global plastic crisis. Building on previous resolutions, reports, and discussions in other international forums, in October 2018, Norway proposed an amendment on plastic waste to the Basel Convention — a treaty that aims to better control the movement and disposal of waste across countries’ borders.
Leading up to the BRS Triple COP, it became clear that the world was coming together to fight the plastic crisis. Most countries supported Norway’s proposal and over one million people globally signed two public petitions from Avaaz and SumOfUs, demanding that countries take action at this key moment.
Basel regulates the international trade of waste by establishing three categories of waste (that can be simplified as red, yellow, and green categories). Everything on the green list can be freely traded globally. Anything on the red list is considered hazardous waste, while the yellow list includes other kinds of waste that may present risks. Anything on the red or yellow list is controlled and both require, for example, the prior informed consent of the receiving country.
Up until countries adopted the decision, all plastic was on the green list and could be traded freely. But Norway’s proposal moved the vast majority of mixed and problematic plastic waste to the yellow and red lists.
Yet even with millions supporting the Norwegian proposal, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows at the BRS Triple COP. Some observers — namely the United States (who isn’t a party to the Basel Convention) and industry representatives — launched their own disinformation campaign to sow doubt and try to defeat the Norwegian proposal. Following their lead, a couple of parties from South America actively opposed the proposal. They used delay tactics and bad-faith negotiating techniques, trying to derail the discussions and prevent the adoption of the proposal. In the meantime, the rest of the world supported the Norwegian amendment, with the EU and China even building on it to make it more protective. Until the last day of intense negotiations, tensions remained high, and it felt like countries may not reach a decision in spite of massive public approval.
Supporters of the proposed amendment finally overcame opposition at the last minute — including by suggesting they were willing to go to a vote to move forward on this issue even without the support of all countries. This pressure forced countries who were delaying action to fall into line, as they did not want to be seen as the one blocking consensus on such a prominent issue.
In a triumphant moment, countries came together and unanimously adopted the new decision. It was a demonstration of how inspiring and effective international action can be when the world works together to solve an issue that affects all of us.
What the Basel Amendment Means for the Plastic Waste Trade
The new amendment has massive repercussions for the global plastic waste trade. The amendment goes into effect starting in January 2021. From then on, only batches of individual non-halogenated polymers (or a very narrow mix of polyethylene, polypropylene, and PET), that are sorted, clean, and uncontaminated and effectively destined for recycling can be freely traded globally. All other types of plastic waste will require the importing country’s prior informed consent before it can be exported.
The countries who have been receiving massive amounts of plastic that they can’t deal with will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
But how will this affect countries who haven’t ratified the Basel Convention? The Basel Convention is a near-universal treaty with 187 parties and only a handful of countries remaining outside of the agreement. And the decision adopted in May will have consequences for non-parties too:
In effect, the only types of plastic waste that can be traded between parties and non-parties are those on the green list. All other plastic waste (i.e., any plastic waste that is not clean, uncontaminated, sorted by polymer, and destined for recycling) can’t be traded between parties and non-parties, regardless of prior informed consent. As a result, non-parties can’t export those wastes to any of the 187 countries that are parties to the Convention. Among the non-parties who will face these restrictions is the largest plastic waste producer and exporter in the world: the United States.
A similar effect (but with a different legal cause) will apply to the EU, even though it is party to the Basel Convention. The EU’s own internal laws ban the export of waste listed on the red and yellow lists of the Basel Convention to developing countries, meaning that the EU too will no longer be able to dump its “non-clean” plastic waste abroad, with or without consent. (This does require a technical update of the EU waste legislation, but this revision should be automatic.)
There’s still a long way to go to address the plastic crisis, but this is an important first step. Now, we’ll keep looking to other forums — from local single-use-plastic bans to other international efforts to regulate plastic — as the world comes together to stop the plastic tide.
By Corentin David, Geneva-based intern
Originally posted on June 26, 2019