German plastic waste exports to Asia increased by almost half last year. Environmentalists point out that such exports sometimes end up as waste in the landscape.
More and more plastic waste is being shipped to Asia. In 2023, around 158,000 tonnes of plastic waste were transported there from the Federal Republic, around 51,000 tonnes more than a year earlier, said the waste disposal association BDE. The information is an estimate: official statistics are available for the first ten months of 2023, and an association projection for the last two.
Exports had already increased in 2022, but at that time they only rose slightly by six percent. It’s about exports to countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Turkey is included in Europe in the statistics.
Plastic as a raw material
More than six million tons of plastic waste are recycled in Germany every year, and the proportion of this exported to Asia is small. They are not considered waste, but rather as raw materials that are processed into textiles, street bollards or benches.
From the perspective of the waste management industry, a certain amount of such exports is part of normal business in times of globalization. Ultimately, this could satisfy the need for such raw materials in other regions of the world and, if used appropriately, would provide added value for the economy.
Environmentalists are calling for an export ban
However, environmentalists point out that regulations and controls are weaker in poorer countries and that such exports sometimes end up as garbage in the landscape and the seas. The Greenpeace organization is calling for a ban on such exports.
“Our plastic waste must also be recycled in Germany, otherwise nothing will change in the broken system of single-use plastic,” says Greenpeace expert Viola Wohlgemuth. They are annoyed that the garbage shipped to Asia is counted as recycled and thus improves the recycling rate. This is lying to yourself, complains the environmentalist.
The environmentalist advocates for decisive measures to promote the use of reusable items and reduce the huge amounts of single-use plastic items.
Asian exports fell significantly in the long term
The BDE association, in turn, demands that politicians ensure that applicable rules are strictly monitored and that black sheep among companies have no chance. The BDE also points out that Asia’s share of the waste industry’s German export business is very low compared to the beginning of the last decade: in 2011, Germany shipped 763,400 tons of plastic waste to China, around five times as much as last year to Asia as a whole.
At that time, China was by far the main buyer. Beijing later put a stop to the controversial business with strict import rules; today the Chinese share is zero.
The amount of waste is continually decreasing
According to BDE statistics, Asian exports only make up around a quarter of all plastic waste exports from Germany. The main buyers in 2023 were the Netherlands (around 126,000 tons), followed by Malaysia (90,000), Turkey (86,000), Poland (65,000), Indonesia (40,000), Switzerland (39,000), Austria (38,000) and Belgium (30,000). Vietnam (25,000) and the Czech Republic (16,000) were also among the ten most important buyer countries.
All in all, the export weight last year was around 685,000 tons, only about half as much as in 2013 (1,325,000 tons). In the BDE statistics, which go back to 2008, it is by far the lowest value – the amounts of plastic waste have been falling continuously since 2016. In 2022 there were still around 757,000.