[shioyama]

> The present dumping ground of choice is Malaysia.

Use of the term "dumping" makes me seriously question the article's storyline. Plastic garbage is not "dumped" in Malaysia, it is sold to buyers in Malaysia. If you wanted to dump it it would be much cheaper to do so at source.

Ref: https://discardstudies.com/2019/05/06/adam-minter-how-things...

[chewz]

> Plastic garbage is not "dumped" in Malaysia, it is sold to buyers in Malaysia.

It is sold to some businesses in Malaysia who will then dump it. This is how they make quick money.

[shioyama]

Ok, please explain why in the world businesses in Malaysia would buy garbage just to dump it? That doesn't make ecomonic sense.

In fact (prior to the ban at least) there was a huge industry in China recycling plastics. It's not pretty stuff, but let's not pretend people were buying plastics just to throw them out. Look up the story of We'nan County for example.

From what I've heard the buyers in China have just moved to other places like Malaysia to continue the same business. They are buying plastics to recycle them and make money off that. It's nasty stuff but it is economically motivated.

[chewz]

Because it is an opportunity for quick arbitrage - you get paid to accept trash shipment, you pretend to process it (on paper) and then you simply incinerate or dump trash.

In a country like Malaysia or Thailand with lax regulation, corruption and poor enviroment standards it is an opportunity for some and problem for all.

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-malaysia-plastic-20...

> Some attributed it to the periodic air pollution Malaysia suffers when farmers burn crops in neighboring Indonesia. But Pua, a chemist, knew better. Over the next several weeks, she and a few others traced the smell to a growing number of factories that had cropped up on the outskirts of the town of 30,000 and were taking in truckloads of plastic.

Some of the crude facilities were tucked into oil palm plantations or surrounded by walls of tin sheets. Others made no effort to evade notice.

> Driving home from dinner one evening in June, Pua saw smoke rising from a large plant right along the highway — and was hit with that same noxious odor.

“They were doing it every day,” she said. “We felt helpless.”

> In July, after months of ignoring her complaints, local officials shut down 34 illegal recycling plants in Kuala Langat, prompting a national outcry that resulted in a three-month pause on new plastic waste imports. About 17,000 metric tons of waste was seized, but is too contaminated to be recycled. Most of it is likely to end up in a landfill.

[shioyama]

> you get paid to accept trash shipment

Why would anyone pay someone to accept a trash shipment? Why wouldn't you just dump it at source?

> you get paid to accept trash shipment, you pretend to process it (on paper) and then you simply incinerate or dump trash.

Nowhere in the article does it mention this, what reference do you have for this actually happening?

AFAICT the article doesn't have anything establishing that the plastic being "dumped" is being anything other than imported to be recycled. It's dirty, polluting recycling, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make. There is an economic incentive; the article even mentions how profitable plastic recycling can be.

[ceejayoz]

> Why would anyone pay someone to accept a trash shipment? Why wouldn't you just dump it at source?

Because it’s either illegal or expensive to do so at the source.

[shioyama]

Do you have any source for that claim?

Here's a quote for landfill rates: $40/ton. Do the math yourself, plastics aren't heavy. Much cheaper than sending it in a container across the world. Unless somebody is paying at the other end, of course.

http://riverbend.wm.com/landfill-rates/index.jsp

[pintxo]

Then Malaysia (or some people there) is not in the business of buying plastics, but in the business of selling a cheap solution to get rid of plastics. They are not buyers, but sellers.

[chewz]

There is no such thing as Malaysia - there are individual citizens, politicians, enterpreneurs and government agencies. It is easy to sit in First World country and give advices and look down but people of Malaysia do not deserve living with toxic fumes of plastic garbage burning next to their homes just because some 'enterpreneurs' have grabed opportunity to make a quick (and illegal) dollar.

[ceejayoz]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/09/indonesi...

> In May, the Malaysian government said it would return up to 100 tonnes of Australian waste because it was too contaminated to recycle. It was part of 450 tonnes of imported plastic waste it sent back to countries across the globe. Malaysia’s environment minister, Yeo Bee Yin, said the rubbish was infested with maggots and declared Malaysia would “fight back” and “not be the dumping ground of the world.”

[ZeroGravitas]

Am I the only one weirded out that this story keeps coming up and that everyone seems to ignore the whole "sending people something they didn't ask for when they paid for something else" aspect?

It's like someone coming to pick up your old furniture to donate to Goodwill, mixing it in with bags of dog poop and selling it to them as "mixed furniture".

Of course they're going to send it back. Of course they're going to be offended that you treat them with such disrespect.

But it's untrue to say "Goodwill won't take any more furniture", they just don't want the dog poop.

[ceejayoz]

I don't disagree, but the issue is that picking out "the dog poop" wrecks the cost/benefit balance of recycling vs landfilling it all.

[shioyama]

This is exactly what I was going to point out. Sending something that the buyer didn't ask for is fraud, and should be treated as such. That doesn't mean that all (or even most) such transactions are fraud.