What is the real impact of plastic waste exports on developing countries?

In a rush? Click here to read a short summary of this article

Introduction
Developed countries export millions of tonnes of plastic waste each year, often to developing nations that may not have the infrastructure to manage it. This report explores the environmental, economic, and regulatory impacts of these exports, with a focus on the EU’s recent measures to curb them and the ongoing challenges surrounding illegal waste shipments.

Key Takeaways

• In 2023, over 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste were exported from England, with 26% sent to non-OECD countries.
• Many developing nations face environmental and public health risks when waste is burned, dumped, or mishandled due to limited processing facilities.
• While the EU banned plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries in 2023, illegal shipments persist, with up to one-third of waste exports believed to be unlawful.
• Turkey, India, and Egypt are the top destinations for EU waste, accounting for 60% of all exports.
• Some developing countries benefit economically from waste recycling due to low labor costs and profitable resale of materials, but this is not a universal outcome.
• Companies like Coca-Cola are investing in recycling initiatives in developing nations, but large-scale improvements are still needed.

Conclusion
Plastic waste exports continue to place a heavy burden on developing countries, despite new regulations and growing global scrutiny. While some nations are equipped to process waste safely, many are not, leading to serious environmental and health impacts. Stronger enforcement, investment in local infrastructure, and shared global responsibility will be essential to reducing these harms in the years ahead.

Over the last few years, attention has been drawn to how developed countries including the United States, China, and the United Kingdom export their packaging waste, and which countries these exports are being sent to.

Concerns have been raised over developed countries shipping packaging waste to developing ones, especially if those countries lack the necessary infrastructure to process this waste. In this edition of the Brief, we examine the impact of packaging waste exports from China, the UK and various EU member states on developing countries and the EU’s measures to tackle these exports.

In a recent Brief, journalist Emma Liggins investigated the concept of environmental racism and how the packaging industry contributes to its impacts. Within this, she highlighted that global plastic waste exports, especially from the US and other high-income countries to developing nations, exacerbate environmental and public health harms in places with limited waste-management infrastructure.

The piece highlights that while the European Union has prohibited exports of plastic waste to non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (and this is to say nothing of ongoing and illegal shipments of plastic waste), the United States is still a major exporter.

The influx of plastic waste from other countries on top of one’s own – especially when developing countries may lack the necessary infrastructure to process it all – has environmental implications. Processing facilities are forced to shut down when the surrounding air, soil and water supply become contaminated, and the oversupply of plastic is often incinerated, landfilled or dumped.

The Brief also mentioned that The Coca-Cola Company, considered a major contributor to branded plastic waste around the world, is projected to use 4.1 million metric tons of plastic by 2030. However, at the same time it has set targets to improve the livelihoods of informal waste workers and solve recycling challenges in Least Developed Nations and Small Island Developing States by investing in new solutions and service delivery models.

According to Break Free From Plastic, developed countries sometimes frame their exports as donations or supply for recycling; yet findings suggest that the quality of waste kept and traded within the EU is much higher than the waste sent elsewhere.

The consequences for developing countries

In 2023, UK independent authority Recoup found that the amount of plastic exported for recycling was increasing, with significant quantities going to developing non-OECD countries.

It stated that despite increases in material being recycled in the UK, year-on-year quantities of plastic waste exported for recycling from England had increased by more than 10% to just over 600,000 tonnes. More than 26% of this was sent to non-OECD or developing countries.

The organisation noted that while countries seen in the news with poor quality waste management and incidences of illegal burning or burying of waste are more often non-OECD countries, there are high quality reprocessing facilities in a number of these countries.

The following year, the Global Times published an article detailing how developing countries were “saying no to ‘waste colonialism’” from developed countries. The article’s authors state that the term waste colonialism, as used in an article by The Guardian, “describes the practice by which Western countries export plastic and other types of waste to less-developed countries.”

The article states that despite China’s ban on solid waste imports, developed countries continue to “exploit regulatory loopholes” to export waste to developing countries including China, aiming to avoid higher recycling costs at home.

Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times that a key driver of this issue is the “profitability and low risk” of waste trafficking.

Liu Jianguo, a professor from Tsinghua University’s School of Environment, told the newspaper that the global flow of “foreign waste” from developed to developing countries has not significantly changed, primarily due to the ongoing disparity in global industrial division.

Jianguo added that developed countries tend to focus on high-value industries like research and development and manufacturing, while lower-value waste recycling industries are relegated to developing countries.

EU measures to tackle plastic waste exports

With developed countries seeking to reduce costs and developing countries not always having the appropriate infrastructure to process this waste, what measures are being taken to tackle these exports and minimise their impact?

In 2023, the EU banned plastic waste shipments to non-OECD countries as the European Commission aimed to take “greater responsibility” for EU exports, lift the environmental burden on third world countries and utilize waste as a resource in line with the Green Deal. The Commission said it would monitor all waste exports to OECD countries and intervene if these processes affected the receiving countries.

Meanwhile, all EU companies exporting waste outside the EU must ensure that the receiving facilities undergo an independent audit proving that their waste will be managed responsibly.

Despite the ban, a Euronews article the following year revealed ongoing issues with illegal waste shipments and the volumes of waste being shipped. Citing statistics from Eurostat, the article highlighted that 61.3 million tonnes of EU waste were shipped between member states in 2023, with an additional 35.1 million tonnes of waste exported to non-EU countries that year.

In addition, it stated that around 60% of all waste exports were sent to three countries: Turkey received around 38% of the EU’s exported waste, followed by India (17%) and Egypt (5%), with up to 1/3 of all waste shipments believed to be illegal.

Can plastic packaging exports help developing countries economically?

In contrast, an article by PlasPak detailed how plastic waste can help developing countries economically. While it’s worth noting that the article was written in 2022 - before the mentioned EU bans and pushback against packaging waste exports – the company observed that “many wealthy countries ship their recyclable waste overseas because it is less expensive”, adding that it also helps them meet their recycling targets and reduces the amount of waste to landfill.

PlasPak emphasized that materials that cannot be recycled wind up being unlawfully burned, dumped in landfills, or disposed of in rivers, posing a threat to the environment and human health. It also stated that when developed countries export their plastic garbage to developing countries with less developed recycling infrastructure, the plastics are frequently dumped.

However, it also pointed out that some are recycled and used to generate profit, such as plastic, cloth, glass, and scrap metal. The company specified that one of the primary reasons plastic recycling is a “thriving company” in underdeveloped countries is the high unemployment rate and low labour cost, especially as companies are more likely to hire additional employees when labour costs are reduced.

While some measures have been taken to reduce the impact of packaging waste exports on developing countries, they are still having a significant impact on the waste infrastructure of the countries they are being shipped to.

As stated by PlasPak, packaging waste can be utilized to help the economy, and a number of non-OECD or developing countries have high quality reprocessing facilities, as pointed out by Recoup - but this is not always the case.

It seems that more needs to be done to tackle the amount of packaging waste being exported from developing countries – as issues persist despite the EU’s ban on exports and measures to tackle illegal shipments – and to address the exports themselves, as the pressure for processing the waste should not fall on countries who did not produce it.

If you liked this story, you might also enjoy:

The ultimate guide to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation in 2025

How are the top brands progressing on packaging sustainability?

Everything you need to know about global packaging sustainability regulation in 2025

The key to increasing the use of reusable packaging in supermarkets