[gwbas1c]

The problem is mis-representing what's in the shipment.

(There's probably a lot of plausible deniability in the system. People throw a lot of trash into recycling bins for lots of reasons, including ignorance or laziness. Trash companies don't take responsibility to make sure that's what's in the bin is actually what's supposed to be there.)

Read the article. There's dirty diapers mixed in with so-called "recyclables."

[usrusr]

It's a whole bidirectional cascade of misrepresentation I think: every time the materials change hands, the output side passes on the quality/purity promise from upstream, but more optimistic within an almost reasonable error margin. In the same transaction, the input side passes on the responsible handling promise of their downstream partner, but more optimistic, within an almost reasonable error margin.

How many intermediate subcontracting steps would it take to allow the original source tho pay for (supposedly) perfectly clean full reuse recycling of a toxic mess, and the final sink to dump (supposedly) perfectly harmless materials into the sea?

[Scoundreller]

Right, the developing country buyer was being defrauded. Not unlike selling a PS4 on EBay and getting a brick in a shrink wrapped PS4 box.

If anything, this case just demonstrated the appetite for plastic waste. Buyers are willing to take risks to get their hands on it.