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Interpol: increase in criminal trafficking in plastic waste
3 September 2020
Interpol observes a sharp increase in crime related to the trade in plastic waste. Under the guise of recycling, more and more plastic has been dumped or illegally incinerated in recent years. Criminals exploit loopholes in regulations and lack of control in countries that receive illegal container shipments. The big loser is the environment.
The international police organization draws these and other conclusions in a recently published report.
TWO ORIGINS
Until 2018, 85% of all plastic waste exported from Europe went to China. After China closed its borders for this purpose, Western countries will no longer be able to dispose of their plastic waste. The consequence of insufficient processing capacity at home is twofold. On the one hand, the export of plastic waste is shifting to other countries, especially in the Southeast Asian region. Also, much more plastic is stored, illegally dumped or incinerated in our own country than before.
Interpol points to another cause. The prices of recycled plastic cannot compete with those of new (virgin) plastic. In this situation, you earn from illegally dumping plastic waste, because you save on the costs of recycling.
TRICK WITH CONTAINERS
Asian countries have a shortage of containers to export their products. According to Interpol, Western criminals make good use of this. Sending empty containers back to these countries is too expensive, and so they are filled. There is fraud with the papers.
There are different categories of plastic waste. For example, the dirty plastics are mixed with clean ones or hidden in the back of a container. The receiving countries do not have the capacity to process all that plastic responsibly. There is hardly any control. It is not possible to check whether plastic that is shipped for recycling according to the papers is actually recycled. The pollution resulting from these practices is, says Interpol, ‘crime-driven’.
FRENCH MAYOR MURDERED
The report gives examples showing how dramatic and grim the situation has become. France is no longer able to cope with the large quantities of plastic waste it produces, resulting in illegal shipments in addition to dumping and illegal incineration in its own country.
Last November, the French authorities imposed a fine of 192,000 Euros on a company that had sent containers of plastic waste to Malaysia and then ignored Malaysia’s request to retrieve the containers. The mayor of the small French town of Signes was murdered in August 2019 when he tried to prevent illegal dumping of waste.
MANY SUSPICIOUS FIRES IN THE NETHERLANDS
After China closed its borders, a lot of plastic was stored outside in the Netherlands. It was very suspicious that these new mountains of waste then regularly caught fire. Interpol reports that the Dutch government entered into discussions with the insurance companies. The insurance no longer covers the fires in the open air after the policies have been amended. The fact that the number of fires in the Netherlands fell drastically in the first months of 2020 is a strong indication for Interpol that some of the fires were started deliberately.
WASTE CRIME IS ROOTED IN OVERPRODUCTION
Rising crime is a result of a system that has gotten out of hand and can no longer be controlled. There is little point in fighting this crime if the causes of the global overproduction of plastic are not addressed. A spokesman of the World Wide Fund hits the nail on the head in a reaction to the report:
Waste crime is a rising threat with roots in a more fundamental problem: the inability to manage our plastic use and production. We know the impacts of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems; the potential links to human health and now, the criminal implications of it.
Photo by Nick Fewings
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