Plastic Podcast Episode 10: Thailand, Malaysia, and the Global Economy of Plastic Waste

Episode Description: 

This episode journeys to Thailand and Malaysia to uncover the intricacies of the global plastic waste economy—a staggering $37 billion industry. Clark is joined by Dr. Hui Ling, a sustainability consultant from Malaysia, and Dr. Danny Marks, an environmental policy researcher from Dublin City University, to explore the international trade of plastic waste, the socio-economic impacts on countries receiving Western waste, and the uneven burden of pollution. They discuss the consequences of poor waste management systems, financial incentives in the global waste trade, and the urgent need for international policies to address these issues. Tune in to learn about the efforts to mitigate these challenges and hear expert insights on creating a more sustainable future for plastic waste management.

Episode Guests: 

Find Dr. Marks’ publications on Research Gate

Find Dr. Chen Hui Ling’s publications on Research Gate

More information about the episode and the Plastic Podcast

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted, produced, written, and edited by Clark Marchese 

Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong. 

Theme music by Tadeo Cabellos 

Transcript:

[00:00:10.830] - Clark

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Plastic Podcast, the show that tells the science and the story of our relationship with plastic. I am your host, Clark Markasi, and today we are traveling to Thailand and Malaysia to talk about the global economy of plastic waste. All right. But before we jump into it, we always get started with the Trivia Question. The question for today is, which of the following is the most abundant element in the universe? Is it A, hydrogen, B, helium, C, iron, or D, mercury? Spotify listeners can answer directly on the episode page of the app, and everyone else can DM me on Instagram at pineforestmedia for a chance to win a monthly prize. No cheating. You can stick around to the end of the credits to hear the answer to last week's question and a lovely review from one of you. Okay, now we are going to begin. The global economy of plastic waste. What is it? Well, it's about a 37 billion dollar industry. And that number is so high because as humans produce so much freaking plastic, we've got to figure out what we're going to do with it.

[00:01:23.770] - Clark

Now, this term global economy of plastic waste, refers largely to international imports and exports of plastic waste. Why would countries want to import plastic waste? Well, we're going to find out. We're also going to find out why these countries that produce and consume the most plastic waste around the world are not the same ones that, contribute the most to plastic pollution. What I will tell you now is that there is a directional flow of the plastic waste economy from high income Western countries to lower income countries in the global south or the majority world, as we sometimes call it. Now, in the next 30 minutes or so, we're going to investigate the cause of this directional flow the social and ecological consequences it brings, and also what has already been done and what is going to be done to address it. To help us through all of this, I have two guests for us today. The first is Dr. Hui Ling, researcher turned sustainability consultant from Malaysia. The second is Dr. Danny Marks, who is a researcher at the Dublin City University and specializes in the social applications of environmental issues. Without further ado, let's get started.

[00:02:30.340] - Clark

All right. Hello, and welcome to the show. Let me start by asking each of you to introduce yourselves.

[00:02:41.570] - Dr. Danny Marks

Sure. My name is Dr. Danny Marks. I'm an Assistant Professor at Environmental Policy and Policy at Dublin City University in Ireland. My interest is in Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, but I also done research in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos as well. They're looking at basically environmental change and risks and looking at how they affect people and also non-people, like animals, particularly in terms of justice, why some groups are affected the most while other groups. So I've looked at a host of issues directly related to this podcast. I've looked at plastic. I guess I became interested in Southeast Asia because I mixed. My mother is Thai, my father is American. I grew up in the US, but I was born in Thailand. And after I went to university in the US, I spent many years in Southeast Asia. I guess I grew an affinity to the region and became interested in environmental issues there.

[00:03:31.080] - Clark

All right. Lovely to meet you. Thank you for being here.

[00:03:33.860] - Dr. Hui Ling

Right. I'm Kui Lin. You can also call me Chen. My research background is basically on microplastics in Malaysian Rivers, but I've also done some research on the plastic waste problem in Malaysia and also some research on household waste separation in Malaysia. Currently, I'm no longer doing research, and I've ventured into sustainability consulting.

[00:03:58.620] - Clark

All right. I'm so glad to have here. So both of you have interaction with a region that is talked about a lot when we think of the global plastic waste economy. And I think it's because there's quite an imbalance going on. According to our world in data, 81% of marine plastic waste comes from Asia, which obviously Asia is so enormous that that figure is almost not even helpful. But if we break it down by country, we see really high numbers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and yes, Malaysia, and Thailand as well. And the reason this is an imbalance is because I looked at some other statistics such as plastic production, and only one country in Southeast Asia makes it onto the list of the top 10 plastic producing countries, which happens to be Indonesia. So we see a major disconnect between production and pollution. But beyond that, we see a major disconnect in waste generation and pollution, which you'd think would be the same. But the country with the highest plastic waste generation is by far the United States, and the EU as a whole is third on the list. So how does it happen that the West is producing all this waste, but most of our plastic marine pollution is coming out of Southeast Asia?

[00:05:02.880] - Dr. Danny Marks

It's a good question about why this imbalance occurs. I would point to two reasons. First is in terms of imports. These countries, particularly after 2017, when China implemented its National Sword policy, which basically means China is going to stop taking imports from Western countries, they became the global dumping site of the world in terms of plastic. They struggled, basically, to handle all this additional plastic from these Western countries. And so that means that even though these Western countries might use a lot, they basically export it, so they don't have to deal. And so instead, a lot of it ends up in Southeast Asia. I think one statistic ends up 75% of global exported waste ends up in Asia. So for example, the UK exports about 70% of its waste. So that's one piece of the puzzle. The other piece of the puzzle is that these countries have very poor waste management systems. One statistic of Thailand is that 27% of its waste is improperly disposed, which basically means leaks into the environment. They don't have good landfill sites. There's a lot of littering, dumping, a lot of waste leaks basically into waterways. These waste management systems are not properly funded in these countries.

[00:06:13.220] - Dr. Danny Marks

They don't have good resources. Particularly at local municipal level. Then I think a third part of the puzzle is the geography of these countries, particularly island countries. If you have more of a coastline, it's just a higher risk for plastic to seep into the ocean. Some of these are like Philippines and Indonesia, that hundreds of thousands of islands. And so this makes it just more easy for plastic to get into the oceans from these countries.

[00:06:37.490] - Clark

Okay, so there's two things I want to bring up from that. The first has to do with the 27% of waste in Thailand being mismanaged. It just makes me think whether the 70% of its waste that the United Kingdom sends elsewhere would fall under the properly managed category or the improperly managed category. Just thought there. One thing I also looked into was the countries with the most kilometers of coastline. And Canada is number one. Norway is number two, the United States is number eight, and the United Kingdom is 12. Malaysia doesn't show up until we get all the way down to 29, and Thailand at 35. So I I wanted to point this out because it could be easier for us to say, Well, Southeast Asian countries have a lot of islands and coastline. Of course, they have marine pollution. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. No, that's the way we've smashed the cookie. There are international capitalist pressures that cause a pollution imbalance, and the long coastlines only explain why that plastic ultimately reaches the ocean rather than staying landlocked. But I want to get into those first two reasons you mentioned, which were the imports and exports and also domestic waste management.

[00:07:43.130] - Clark

But let's start with one at a time. Can you tell me more about how this global economy of plastic waste actually works?

[00:07:49.010] - Dr. Hui Ling

The global economy of plastic is basically just talking about the international trade of plastics between countries. Basically, we have developed countries that often export their plastic waste to less developed countries because processing them is cheaper and regulations related to these plastic waste are less strict. So this essentially creates a global market of plastic waste.

[00:08:20.430] - Dr. Danny Marks

Max Liberowen wrote this book, The Waste is Colonialism. So that's what some people, I guess more critical academics have called this, is basically it's a continuation of old colonial practices, basically finding space and land to handle waste. Not only do the Western countries not have to take in the environmental impacts of producing the goods that they use, they also don't have to deal with the waste after they use the goods. Basically, all they have to do is consume it, and then they don't have to handle any of the adverse impacts. But yeah, some people could say waste is another form of colonialism, but certainly it's a transboundary failure because there's no global treaty that's specifically strong enough to deal with plastic waste. There are various treaties like the Basel Treaty and others, but they don't just civically target plastic waste, and so they basically failed.

[00:09:10.640] - Clark

Okay, so the Basel Treaty or the Basel Convention took place in 1989, and it was aimed at regulating the international movement of many types of hazardous waste, plastic being only one. It is considered the main and most important treaty to date, regulating the movement of plastic waste, and it went into effect in 1992. There have been some noteworthy amendments since then, but this was 30 years ago, and it's definitely a good thing we have ongoing negotiations for another treaty on plastics, which listeners of the show will have heard of by now, and newcomers can go back to previous episodes. Now, this treaty, the Basel Treaty, the United States has signed but not ratified this treaty. A little nerdy nuance there. To sign a treaty means you agree with the idea of it and its objectives. To ratify it means to actually take it up as domestic law. So the US cannot be held liable for violating this treaty if they have not ratified it. So to the old US of A, hi, hello, you're the problem. It's you. Anyways, one of the main tenets of this treaty is that sending countries must receive the prior and informed consent of the receiving countries before the trade can take place.

[00:10:20.410] - Clark

Which leads me to my next question. Why are countries, which you have stated, already have under-resource waste management systems consenting to receive all this extra waste?

[00:10:30.120] - Dr. Hui Ling

So, Malaysia, before the global influx of plastic, we have already been importing plastics because this was to feed to our local plastic recycling industry because locally we do not have enough plastic waste to be processed. That's why we import them.

[00:10:47.690] - Clark

Okay. So in some cases, they're finding another use for it, using sorted recycled waste as raw material for other products. But I'm curious, how is there a deficit of recyclable waste when at the same time there's a problem of plastic inundation?

[00:11:03.840] - Dr. Danny Marks

So for example, Thailand has a big company called Indurama, one of the biggest plastic producer of the country. One out of every five bottles are made by Indurama. So I talked to them and they said, Well, the problem is there's not very good waste separation in Thailand. So they can't even get good high-quality plastic. And so basically, they want to import plastic because this plastic is separated. So it's quote recycled in these Western countries. And so it's easier for them then to process this recycled waste.

[00:11:32.000] - Clark

Okay. But then Dr. Hui Ling, you were alluding to the fact that after China placed the ban on foreign imports of plastics, these other countries that we're speaking of now are receiving more plastic than they need to sustain their own domestic recycling systems. So that begs the question then, why are they still taking it? And I was reading something before this that seems somewhat counterintuitive to a general understanding of global trade, where one country pays the other for a good. In this case, do I understand that the receiving countries get paid to take the good, which is, in this case, plastic waste?

[00:12:06.410] - Dr. Hui Ling

Yes, you're correct.

[00:12:08.340] - Dr. Danny Marks

Basically, it's just a financial incentive. These countries say, We're going to pay you to handle the waste. And these countries don't necessarily know what they're going to do with it, but they said, We want your money because they're relatively poor, and so then they take the waste.

[00:12:20.670] - Clark

Then why are the countries that have the resources for well-maintained waste management systems not just managing their own waste rather than paying another country to do it for them?

[00:12:31.700] - Dr. Danny Marks

Because they don't have the infrastructure, the facilities to recycle all the waste. For example, in the US, they dismantled a lot of that. When I grew up in the US, there were recycling centers in my hometown. That's no longer there. They decided to ship it. Now, if they wanted to reverse course, it'd be very expensive. They'd have to invest in a lot of infrastructure and facilities to be able to start recycling at a scale that would make an impact. For example, Ireland, where I am right now, 97% of what recycled waste is exported. So that's a large amount.

[00:13:03.980] - Clark

Wow. Okay. So the US really said, This is not our problem anymore. And they went so far as to divest from their own systems. This is leading me to, What happens when the waste arrives? I'm assuming not all of it is able to be recycled?

[00:13:17.620] - Dr. Hui Ling

When the plastic waste are being imported, not all of them are regulated. So in Malaysia, there is this illegal plastic waste factories. There's these factories that they just import plastic waste just for the incentives. They're just collecting these plastic waste and not really processing them. The quality of the waste are so bad that it's not even recyclable in the first place.

[00:13:43.400] - Clark

Okay, so not all of the waste they receive is this high-quality, well-sorted plastic that can be turned into other things. Oftentimes, we just send a mixed bag of our garbage. And this has a lot of local challenges, I'm sure. And we're going to explore what those are right after this very short break. All right. Before the break, we were just about to get into some of the local challenges in Thailand and Malaysia that are being caused by this global economy of plastic waste. What can you tell me about these challenges?

[00:14:49.990] - Dr. Hui Ling

I think the challenges, the two main one risks, right? It's environment and also social impacts. Of course, environment, you dump it in landfills, it's going to get But also socially, we have a town called Janjarum. It used to be this really nice, quiet town. But due to the illegal dumping of waste, it's now known as the Plastic Dumpster of Malaysia. And I think there's more than 15,000 tons of waste that are dumped in this small town itself. So these factories, because they are illegal, they are not capable of recycling waste. So they just burn all the waste that they collect there. So this has also affected all of the people living in that town. And up to now, there are still reports of health problems of people that are living there. So my research in Rivers is basically looking at microplastics, the sources of it, how they enter Rivers, and also how it is related to river flows. We did a small study in Jinjarum, which is the town I mentioned, to just find out how much more plastics there are, and the results are really staggering. It's so much more polluted in Jinjarum. It's just a small stretch of the river, but the plastics are way more than the main stem.

[00:16:14.390] - Clark

Okay, so You mentioned that the two main problems are environmental costs and social costs, and I guess this is a perfect example of how these two are often closely connected. I'll also remind us of last week's episode when Dr. Bhedita Seewoo mentioned the understudied health impacts of plastic waste in vulnerable populations in the global south. Well, this is also definitely one example of that, and it just shows how severe the exposure risk can be. Dr. Marks, you also wrote a paper about the social implications of plastic waste management in Thailand. One of the social risks, you write, is on account of the fact that unlike in the EU or the US, the Thai system relies more heavily on informal actors. Can you explain what the informal actors look like and also the added risks that are involved there?

[00:17:02.390] - Dr. Danny Marks

Sure, that's a good question. One reason for so many informal actors is that municipal governments, which are responsible for waste management, they do not really impose people to separate waste, but they still want to recycle. You go to a trash can in Thailand and everything's mixed together. And so this is where the informal economy comes in. These are people called Selang, are basically informal waste pickers. And so basically, they collect, sort, and then transpose recycled materials. So they play a very vital function. I think one estimate says that they're worth about $16 million annually to the Bangkok economy, just Bangkok alone.

[00:17:41.220] - Clark

Are they paid by the government to do that?

[00:17:43.550] - Dr. Danny Marks

Yeah. So basically, it's like a subsidy, almost. And so basically, these people are in their livelihoods to picking waste. And so what they will do, some of them will drive around with motorbikes or these little carts. They will stop and pick up plastic bottles or anything that they can make a little bit of their money from. And So they segregate the waste, then they sell it to these bigger middlemen who will then sell it to these companies like Induramma. So once that's one thing they do, they also, some of them go to land dumps. There, if it's not too difficult, they will also pick up waste from the landfills as well. So there's estimated 1.5 million in Thailand of these people. There are Philippines as well, Indonesia, India, throughout the global south, our developing countries.

[00:18:22.890] - Clark

I can imagine there might be some occupational hazards there as well if you're spending your workday in a landfill. So there's a bit of a justice concern there, too?

[00:18:31.900] - Dr. Danny Marks

Sure, definitely, yes. I mean, one problem is that they're informal. They're not formalized, so they don't receive any benefits. They don't receive any welfare or any protection in terms of insurance from the state. Highly less so than places like Philippines, where you actually have landfill explosions, where there's so much, basically this dangerous gas explodes and people die from it. There's a lot of hazardous chemicals and bad for lungs, breathing in some of the materials when you're going through the waste. So yes, there's certainly a lot of issues.

[00:19:02.970] - Clark

Are there any current efforts to formalize the waste pickers?

[00:19:06.290] - Dr. Danny Marks

There are some NGOs that are working on it, but they haven't really gotten any traction at all, unfortunately. In other countries, there's been more movement than Thailand.

[00:19:15.370] - Clark

So I know that both Thailand and Malaysia are taking some steps to address these challenges, both within their own countries and also through their interaction with the sending countries. Can we talk about some of these efforts?

[00:19:27.050] - Dr. Danny Marks

I mean, there has been talk about EPR law, extended produce a responsibility law, but that hasn't come into force yet.

[00:19:33.910] - Clark

What would that look like for someone who doesn't know what an EPR is?

[00:19:37.030] - Dr. Danny Marks

Basically, it means that those who produce the packaging are responsible for the complete life cycle of the product, not just its consumption, but also its waste. Companies, for example, would invest in infrastructure for recycling, or they would pay more to help fund recycling initiatives. But basically, Thai companies have been fighting off against this EPR, particularly the big companies, because that basically more costs for them. The government has always been quite close to these big corporations and so on. Just to think of economics, who has to pay for the waste? Shouldn't those who profit from these goods have to pay for it? Plastic producers try to basically put the onus on anybody but themselves. And they have to argue that plastic is good. They'd say that plastic is good for the economy, plastic is good for human development, and that alternatives like paper or bamboo, they're bad for the environment as well. They basically say, Instead of reducing plastic, we just need to reuse or recycle more plastic.

[00:20:34.300] - Clark

Yeah, that argument doesn't really stuck up to the reality of the situation that we are in. What about Malaysia? What has Malaysia been doing to address some of these challenges?

[00:20:42.530] - Dr. Hui Ling

So in 2020, we had a new minister. The Ministry name is pretty long. It's something like Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change. It's a long ministry. This minister, she took over and decided to send back all of the waste because It's not really compliant.

[00:21:02.080] - Clark

Okay, so similar to what China said in 2018, we're no longer going to accept this waste, certainly if it's not compliant or properly sorted as it was meant to be. I also read that Thailand is going to put an end to plastic imports soon. They're actually in the middle of a phase-out process that started in 2020, and the goal is to completely stop imports by 2025, which is next year. So Western countries are going to have to start making some changes soon. I'm curious, do either of you Do you know if imports and exports are going to be addressed in the upcoming Treaty on Plastic Pollution that we talk about so much on the show?

[00:21:36.690] - Dr. Danny Marks

Oh, it's being discussed. There is talk about import and export.

[00:21:39.320] - Clark

If you could design a policy to regulate the imports and exports of plastic waste entering the region of Southeast Asia that would be included in this treaty, what would you have it say?

[00:21:50.210] - Dr. Hui Ling

Generally to enforce stricter regulations because like I mentioned just now, it's all illegal, and some of the waste are even labeled as something something else. That means nobody really knows what's inside the container. They just accept it, but then it's all plastic waste inside. Definitely, stricter regulations are needed. But I think internationally, of course, I think the developed countries also can have greater accountability to manage their own waste and not just dump their waste into less developed countries just because it's a cheaper option.

[00:22:27.140] - Dr. Danny Marks

I would basically put it in a band. They make countries who's responsible for their own waste.

[00:22:32.530] - Clark

I mean, that seems fair to me. We are going to start to close out this episode, so I have two final questions for you. The first is, is there a piece of good news that's come out in your work recently that you can share with us?

[00:22:43.950] - Dr. Hui Ling

Something positive is that Malaysia has been really pushing for sustainability initiatives, and they've also come up with a lot of funds to help companies really be greener and more sustainable. So that is definitely a positive thing that I can share here.

[00:23:01.070] - Dr. Danny Marks

To go to Thailand. The Thailand has changed its law. Before, it was quite strict. They couldn't use any recycled plastic bottles because the Cluedent Health Administration was quite worried about because people use plastic bottles for oil, for example, to fill up cars and motorbikes. And so they were quite worried about the sanitary issue of this. But after quite a bit of lobbying by both private sector, surprisingly, but also a civil society, they have changed that regulation. And so that will certainly improve recycling in Thailand.

[00:23:29.580] - Clark

They're Great. Thanks for sharing. The last question is, did we miss anything today that we can't forget to mention? Is there anything you'd like to add that we didn't talk about on the topic of the global plastic waste trade or working in the sector of sustainability?

[00:23:42.150] - Dr. Danny Marks

So one great thing is that I actually meet champions Whereas one woman that I co-authored with named Sujitra, she's the champion of plastic reform in Thailand. And she's involved in so many different organizations, and she's trying to rewrite laws. But there are also NGOs, there's also startups all trying to address this issue. It's great to talk to those people. It gives me more hope that also motivates me to report on this issue, to write about it, and to work with them. That's one great part about my job is to not only look at the bad side, but also see that people are trying to address this issue.

[00:24:20.200] - Clark

All right. Well, then with that, I will say thank you both so much for your time today and for your very important work in this space.

[00:24:27.560] - Dr. Danny Marks

Yeah, thank you too for the interview. Likewise. Thank you, too, for the interview.

[00:24:29.750] - Dr. Hui Ling

Likewise, thank you for having me.

[00:24:39.540] - Clark

One thing that a lot of scientists have been telling me needs to happen with plastic is that we need to stop production in a major way. A day, especially of unnecessary plastic. The million dollar question is, what's it going to take for that to happen? I guess the main reason why it hasn't is because those who have the power to pressure companies and governments that are actually controlling this tap, and I say that because it's It's a collective thing, right? I'm included in that group. But we haven't been mobilized because we haven't had to face the consequences yet or we don't know about them. The invisible consequences are too small to see, and the visible ones mostly exist halfway around the world. But you At the same time, maybe that's not true. Maybe we do know about them, and we just don't care. I mean, China has banned plastic imports in 2018, and Huy Leng just told us that Malaysia was sending our waste back to us in 2020. Journalists have been reporting on this for over half a decade now, and our production of plastic has only increased since then. But you know what?

[00:25:34.830] - Clark

It sounds like things might be about to change, and I hope they do. I hope we do become accountable for the waste that we produce. I think also we might be in for a big wake-up call. Let's remember that statistic from the UK sending away 70% of its waste. If the United Kingdom suddenly has to deal with over three times what they're already dealing with, I mean, imagine it's going to be garbage city all over the place. The sad thing is if I know capitalism like I think I do, we will just rely on the same systems of environmental injustice that we already see in the West, and they may only become worse. Our current systems will find a way to offload environmental consequences to groups that can't fight back. But I hope that doesn't happen, and I guess I'm going to end this episode on the very tippy top of my soapbox. But I do think it's important to say these things, and if you think so, too, you're very welcome to send this episode to someone who might find it interesting and to help me spread the word. With that, I'll say thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week.

[00:26:40.830] - Clark

You've been listening to Plastic Podcast. You can find more information about this week's guests and links to their work in the episode description. Cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong, and the music you're listening to was done by Tadeo Kbejas. I am your host, Clark Marquesi, and this episode was produced, written, and engineered by me. If you loved it, share it with someone who might also love it. Plastic Podcast is part of a larger network of sciencey podcasts called Pine Forest Media. We've got some exciting science podcasts coming out this year, and a five-star rating across platforms, and a review on Apple Podcasts It's one of the best things you can do to help the entire network to grow. You can find more information about us in the episode description or on our website, pineforestpaws. Com or on Instagram at Pineforest Media. And we are now on TikTok at Pineforest Media. For those of you in the US, I would love to see you there for as long as you're able to see me there. Thank you to all of you who have made it this far. And a very special thank you to Elaina from Paris, who says, This podcast is amazing.

[00:27:44.600] - Clark

So well research features expert guests who are passionate to share their specialty, and best of all, the subtle comedy nods to queer culture by the host. A must listen. I actually don't think I had a single queer reference in this episode. So Elaina from Paris, this one is just for If you would like your review to be featured on the show, all you've got to do is leave one on Apple podcast and you'll probably get picked. Now, for the answer to last week's Trivia Question, the answer was girafes. Girafes have the highest blood pressure, guys. Now, that's all we have for today, and I'll talk to you soon.