Global waste trade
The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries.
Not to be confused with International waste.
The World Bank Report What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, describes the amount of solid waste produced in a given country. Specifically, countries which produce more solid waste are more economically developed and more industrialized.[1] The report explains that "Generally, the higher the economic development and rate of urbanization, the greater the amount of solid waste produced."[1] Therefore, countries in the Global North, which are more economically developed and urbanized, produce more solid waste than Global South countries.[1]
Current international trade flows of waste follow a pattern of waste being produced in the Global North and being exported to and disposed of in the Global South. Multiple factors affect which countries produce waste and at what magnitude, including geographic location, degree of industrialization, and level of integration into the global economy.
Numerous scholars and researchers have linked the sharp increase in waste trading and the negative impacts of waste trading to the prevalence of neoliberal economic policy.[2][3][4][5] With the major economic transition towards neoliberal economic policy in the 1980s, the shift towards "free-market" policy has facilitated the sharp increase in the global waste trade. Henry Giroux, Chair of Cultural Studies at McMaster University, gives his definition of neoliberal economic policy:
Given this economic platform of privatization, neoliberalism is based on expanding free-trade agreements and establishing open-borders to international trade markets. Trade liberalization, a neoliberal economic policy in which trade is completely deregulated, leaving no tariffs, quotas, or other restrictions on international trade, is designed to further developing countries' economies and integrate them into the global economy. Critics claim that although free-market trade liberalization was designed to allow any country the opportunity to reach economic success, the consequences of these policies have been devastating for Global South countries, essentially crippling their economies in a servitude to the Global North.[7] Even supporters such as the International Monetary Fund, “progress of integration has been uneven in recent decades.”[8]
Specifically, developing countries have been targeted by trade liberalization policies to import waste as a means of economic expansion.[9] The guiding neoliberal economic policy argues that the way to be integrated into the global economy is to participate in trade liberalization and exchange in international trade markets.[9] Their claim is that smaller countries, with less infrastructure, less wealth, and less manufacturing ability, should take in hazardous wastes as a way to increase profits and stimulate their economies.[9]
Current debate over global waste trade[edit]
Arguments in support[edit]
Current supporters of global waste trade argue that importing waste is an economic transaction which can benefit countries with little to offer the global economy.[9] Countries which do not have the production capacity to manufacture high quality products can import waste to stimulate their economy.
Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University and Chief Economist of the World Bank, issued a confidential memo arguing for global waste trade in 1991. The memo stated:
Plastic waste[edit]
The trade in plastic waste has been identified as the main cause of marine litter.[a] Countries importing the waste plastics often lack the capacity to process all the material. As a result, the United Nations has imposed a ban on waste plastic trade unless it meets certain criteria.[b]